A Point In Time
by LadyHouston
Summary: A collaboration between medusa20 and myself. Penny's daughter travels back to the year 2011 to enlist the gang for help in stopping an evil corporation from stealing technology.
1. Prologue

_March 9, 2034_

The knocking on the lab door grew more insistent but Sheldon continued to work.

"It's getting louder." Lara's panic was unmistakable. Sheldon said nothing, his fingers played over the Time Transportation Module(TTM) as if it were a piano.

The knocking had now escalated to pounding and Lara gave a little shriek. Sheldon looked up to check the clock on the wall with narrowed eyes and made a few more keystrokes.

"Cooper, you are advised to open the door," said a voice right out of Sheldon's many nightmares.

"St. Angelina Jolie, help us," Lara whispered. The door began to dent inward. Sheldon gave the controller a sharp poke- it still wasn't working smoothly but, ironically, time wasn't his to spare. He gave his breathy laugh at that thought. The door groaned on its hinges and Lara uttered a small scream. Sheldon pressed the device and his notebook into her hands.

"Do you remember all the logarithms for programming?" His blue eyes were focused on the weakening door. She nodded.

"Why can't you come with me or go instead?" Lara fought the tears.

"Lara, I've already explained that. If I go, it will be a direct violation of the clause about time travel that is contained in the roommate agreement. It has to be you."

"Cooper!" another voice roared.

Sheldon grabbed her upper arms. "Your first transport is programmed. Find Penny. No matter what happens, you have to find Penny."

"What if she doesn't believe me?"

"You'll have to make her believe you." Sheldon licked his lips. "Tell her I…"

The door flew open; Sheldon pushed a button on the TTM. He turned to face the intruders as Lara disappeared behind him.


	2. Points In Time

_A point in Time_

_Ch 1_

_Time…Time…Time. See what's become of me_

_Hazy Shade of Winter- Simon & Garfunkel_

_September 3, 2011_

"I'm telling you the truth!" The young woman shouted as she chased after Penny. Penny tried to lose the stranger by walking faster and trying to maneuver around other pedestrians outside of the building. She didn't dare go into her apartment while being followed by a lunatic who said she was her daughter from the future.

The younger woman followed Penny, trying to catch up, her brown curls blowing behind her as she broke into a run. Penny began to panic until she remembered that she was the one with junior rodeo skills and pepper spray in her purse. Whirling around, spray in hand, she confronted her "daughter". The woman was caught off guard for a moment and skidded to a stop.

"Alright. Stop following me. You're not my daughter. You're not from the future. You're crazy, and I know karate!" Penny yelled.

The younger woman looked back with a blank look, her head cocked. "No you don't." The brunette stated, matter-of-factly.

Damn, Penny thought. How did she know? "Listen, I will call the police if you don't stop following me." She looked into the younger woman's green eyes, daring her to make a move.

"Why don't you believe me?"

"Listen whoever you are-"

"Lara."

"Listen, Lara, if that's your real name."

"It is."

"Would you let me finish!" Penny spat. She was furious with this Lara woman who decided to come here and ruin her evening. Lara was quiet, waiting. "Thank you," Penny said, more calmly. "Lara, I don't believe you because there's no such thing as time travel and it's totally weird to be standing outside of your apartment in your mid-twenties while some bat crap crazy girl comes running up to you telling you she's your daughter."

Lara looked thoughtful for a moment before her face lit up. "Sheldon!" She shouted suddenly. Penny was about to ask how this stranger knew Sheldon when Lara suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the apartment building. Penny began to protest, but quickly realized that this woman knew where she lived and who her friends were. If this stranger were going to try anything, she could do it at any time. Besides, Penny was nothing if not a bit curious, so she decided to play along. For now. She kept her hand on her pepper spray, just in case.

"Fourth floor, right?" Lara asked as they made their way up the stairs. Penny nodded absently and wondered how this woman knew so much about her. Penny decided to get a good look at Lara, in case she needed to give a description to the police. Lara was taller and thinner than Penny, but not by much. She had wavy, dark brown hair that fell well past her shoulders and curled at the bottom. She had pale skin and green eyes, a small nose, an angular jaw and strong cheekbones. She had to have been in her early twenties. There was nothing particularly special about her – she was pretty, but plain. She wore a nice floral top, blue jeans and black and white checkered sneakers.

"If you're from the future," Penny spoke, breaking the silence. "Why aren't you wearing more futuristic clothes. You know, like shiny, skin tight stuff like in the movies?"

"I've only traveled back twenty-three years, it's not like we have flying cars and communicate telepathically. Although that would be tricked."

"Tricked?"

"Yeah, you know. Awesome, Rad, groovy¸ the bees knees. Whatever you guys said back then. Or back now. Anyway, the clothes I'm wearing now I bought at the Gap about twenty minutes ago with some old money my dad saved. Come to think of it, it probably would have helped my case if I hadn't changed, but I was getting too many looks."

They came to the fourth floor and Lara stood at the top of the stairs looking back and forth between the first two apartment doors, confused.

"What are we looking for?" Penny asked, not wanting to give away which was hers.

"We're looking for Sheldon. He'll believe me. And if he doesn't, he'll be curious enough to at least take a DNA sample."

Penny sighed. She wasn't sure if she was relieved that she wouldn't be the only one dealing with this crazy lady or if she was worried about involving them in this mess. She decided that the best course of action was to allow Lara to continue and if the DNA didn't match, she would get the girl help. If it did match…well, she didn't want to think about that.

She led Lara to apartment 4A and knocked on the door. Leonard answered and before he or Penny could get a word out, Lara stepped into the apartment and wrapped her arms around him.

"Uncle Leo!" Lara stepped back, hands still on Leonard's shoulders. "You look so young! I like the glasses and no grey hair. That's so tricked!"

Leonard looked at Penny hoping for some sort of answer. Penny was about to give what little information she had, when Lara turned toward Sheldon, who was standing at his grease board.

"Oh my God." She breathed as she walked slowly toward the taller man. "You look exactly the same, Sheldon. I mean, you have less grey hair and fewer wrinkles, but wow. You've hardly changed!" She ran and gave him a hug. He stiffened and looked at Penny.

"What is going on?" He mouthed to her, once again in a social situation he was unfamiliar with.

Lara unwrapped her arms from Sheldon and stood back, taking the apartment in. Penny stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind her.

"This is Lara. She says she's my daughter from the future." Penny scrunched up her face realizing just how ridiculous it all sounded. Leonard started to chuckle nervously. Sheldon's eyes went wide. He stepped toward Lana, a similar look on his face to when he got a napkin with Leonard Nimoy's DNA for Christmas.

"You're from the future? But that would mean – Did you come in a time machine? Is it big? Who invented it? How is it possible? Can you draw up the schematics?" Sheldon handed Lana his black marker and moved to erase everything from his grease board so that she could write down all of the details. Apparently, time travel took precedence over whatever he was working on.

"No, don't do that," Lara spoke up as Sheldon had his eraser poised above his equations. "I have no idea how the 'machine' works and you're going to need that." She pointed up at the grease board. Sheldon obeyed and dropped the eraser.

"Besides," Lara added, "you're the one who made it possible to travel back in time."

Sheldon stumbled, shaking and out of breath. He reached out for his desk chair and sat down, slowly. Lara smiled. She loved seeing him when he was happy.

Sheldon was still shaking from excitement, but something about Lara made him calm down. "You know," he looked her up and down, "You remind me of my sister Missy during her pre-pubescent years."

"Good grief." Penny moaned.

"Of course, once menarche commenced, she became decidedly more curvaceous.' Sheldon finished.

"He's forever comparing me to Missy." Lara smiled pleasantly. Sheldon shook his head as if to clear it of preteen images of his twin.

"Tell me more about this time machine." he prompted.

"It's not really a machine, per say," Lara seemed hesitant to say more. "You determined a machine would be too cumbersome and risky- it could be stolen."

"Very ingenious of me," Sheldon commented. "So what means are employed to initiate time travel?" Lara reached into her pocket and pulled it out. Leonard, Penny and Sheldon all leaned in and peered at the object in her palm.

"That's a TV remote." Penny said. Sheldon picked it up, gingerly turning it over and over.

"I must say I am rather disappointed in myself." He returned it to her palm.

"No, it only _looks_ like a TV remote. See there is an LCD window for the date." Lara pointed out.

"Penny," Leonard whispered to her. "You're right. She's crazy. We have to get her out of here."

"I can prove it." Lara announced then turned the device on Leonard.

"Hey, don't…" and then Leonard froze.

"Oh my god!" Penny shrieked.

"Fascinating," Sheldon breathed, circling Leonard slowly and ending next to Penny.

"I can't leave him like this for longer than a minute," Lara warned. "You learned that the hard way with poor Snowball 2."

"What happened to Snowball 2?" Penny was wide-eyed.

"Nothing. She is still in a state of pause." Lara pushed a button, reanimating Leonard.

"…point that at me." Leonard finished saying.

Sheldon tapped his index finger against his lips. "Show me something else." He demanded.

"I can't."

"Why on Earth not?' The physicist was clearly put out.

"Because," She sighed. "You haven't perfected it yet. This thingy can only contain four phases currently. I used one to get here; I need one to get back and I just used one as a demo."

"There was a demo?" Leonard was clearly disappointed.

"Drat!" Sheldon's shoulders slumped. "I am loathe to admit it but my future self leaves a lot to be desired."

Lara breathed a sigh of relief. So far so good- Sheldon and Leonard were clearly on board. One look at Penny, though, showed the exact opposite.

"Still don't believe me?" Lara raised one eyebrow. Penny blinked at that as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"Oh, I believe you about the time travel. It's the whole 'I'm your daughter' thing that I'm not buying." Lara frowned- Sheldon specifically told her that Penny had to believe that part.

"Why are you here?" Sheldon interrupted her thoughts. Lara smiled. "I'm not saying another word until Penny accepts that I'm her daughter." Both scientists turned to their waitress neighbor.

"Tell her you believe her." Sheldon commanded.

"What! No way." Penny snapped.

"Penny, " Leonard began. "Obviously, she told the truth about the time travel, why not this?"

"Who's the father?" Penny demanded. Lara gulped but remained tight-lipped.

"Penny," Sheldon said. "this girl traveled through time for an important reason and sought us out. Now, you're being stubborn for no apparent reason. I have so many questions and you are standing in the way of vital scientific information."

"Like what?" Penny asked.

"Like if I've won the Nobel Prize or not." Sheldon admitted. Lara laughed; wait till she told him he used to let her play with it.

"The test is simple," Leonard reassured her. "We could go to Caltech now and run it; no one would be the wiser. Plus, if we don't **he** will be even more impossible to live with."

"I couldn't agree more, Leonard" Sheldon chimed. Penny sighed. It seemed like this would be the only way to bring some closure to this bizarre afternoon.

XXXX

"Sheldon, I'm scared." Penny whispered as Sheldon donned latex gloves and prepped the syringe.

"Penny, it's a simple blood test," he said.

"It's not that." Her eyes darkened to forest green with fear. "What if…what if she's telling the truth?"

"Given the demonstration she gave at the apartment, I would assume she is," Sheldon replied, tying the rubber tubing around her upper arm. Across the room, Leonard was doing the same to Lara.

"Sheldon, I don't want to do this." Sheldon sighed, put down the needle and took off the gloves. He wrapped his hand around Penny's forearm; his thumb traveled a circle on the soft, inside skin. The callus on that thumb caused little sparks to travel up and down Penny's spine.

"There, there," his forehead almost touched hers. "Sheldon's here."

Lara's eyes filled as she watched this, in her opinion, extremely private moment.

Did I hurt you?" Leonard asked, noticing her expression.

"Oh, not at all," she reassured him. "Are they always like that?" Leonard glanced over the shook his head.

"Raj, Howard and I gave up trying to figure out that whole thing a year ago and I doubt those two even try."

"I've never seen them like that," Lara confessed.

Leonard cleaned up the blood drawing apparatus. "Well, it doesn't happen too often in this time either but, when it does…," his voice trailed off and his eyes held a hint of nostalgia.

Sheldon had reapplied his gloves and said something to Penny causing her to laugh. Her laugh made a tight smile appear on his face.

"It's magic." Lara finished.

XXXX

They had the results in an hour. Lara and Penny sat in Sheldon's office; neither one spoke. Sheldon and Leonard walked inside and both women stood up, each clasping her left elbow with her right hand.

"Congratulations," Leonard smiled a little. "You have a daughter."

Penny collapsed back into the chair. No freakin' way! She looked up at Lara who returned her gaze with the same green eyes Penny had been viewing the world with.

"Penny, are you okay?" Leonard had crouched down beside her chair.

"She's fine, " Sheldon said then turned to Lara. "You got what you wanted now tell us why you're here."

"Sheldon!" the other three chorused. Sheldon, at least, had the decency to look ashamed.

"I'm sorry, Penny. I can't even begin to imagine what a tremendous shock this must be. On the bright side, it appears Lara has inherited all your more admirable traits and none of the deficits."

"Thank you, Sheldon." Penny said flatly.

"You're welcome." He said agreeably.

XXXX

They returned to 4A. It was evening and Sheldon was whining about dinner.

"If I don't eat soon, tomorrow's bathroom schedule will be completely upended." Lara also seemed out of sorts.

"I hate to be difficult, " She said. "But I haven't eaten in twenty-seven years so I'm a bit peckish."

"We'll get pizza." Leonard suggested.

"Are you insane!" Sheldon cried. "You can't have pizza tonight. It's Sunday- we have sandwiches on Sunday."

Leonard's shoulders dropped. "Sheldon, can you please make an exception just this once.?"

"Then what, Leonard?" The lanky man countered. "Next thing, you'll want to eat Thai food on Thursdays and arrange the cereal alphabetically instead of by fiber content. I'm sorry but order must be maintained."

"Sheldon…" Penny decided to try reasoning with him but Lara interrupted.

"No. It's okay. We always have sandwiches on Sunday that way there is an easy clean-up and we can watch the old Doctor Who DVDs."

"Are you saying Sheldon is still eating this way twenty-three years from now?" Leonard's mouth dropped open. Lara nodded and Sheldon beamed from his spot.

XXXX

"Now, tell us why you're here." Sheldon prompted after dinner had been consumed and cleared away. Penny kept staring at Lara. Now that she was slowly adjusting to the idea, her eyes kept picking up pieces of herself that lived inside the girl. The way Lara used her hands to speak. Her laugh and her smile though Penny would have killed for those long legs and delicate arms.

"It's hard to explain." Lara stood and turned to look at Sheldon. "Basically, you have discovered time travel. Or will discover. This wins you the Nobel Prize." This earned her a wide smile from Sheldon.

"Then, this thing was invented." She held up the time travel device for all to see. "It's called a Time Transportation Module, or TMM for short. Now…or in the future…there is a company who 'collect' technology and they want the TMM very badly. And that's why I'm here. To hide the TMM and to help bring the company to a halt."

"Wait," Leonard interjected. "I don't understand. If you have gone back in time to stop a company from taking something that was created to take you back in time, wouldn't all this be pointless? You're just creating a time loop."

Lara shook her head. "It doesn't work like that. Time isn't a straight line like most people perceive it. It's an entire dimension of infinite proportions. For the most part, whatever I do here will only have an effect on the events contained within the parameters of this situation. I will not create any loops or tears and there will be no dangerous or snowball -like effects on the future. Sheldon told me that there are only a few infinitesimal points in time that can effect time in that way."

Leonard nodded in agreement, although he wasn't completely sure he understood.

"How does this time travel work as a whole?" Sheldon asked. "How is it that you're here?"

"Well, I'm no scientist, but since time is a measurement of movement in space and the fastest thing in the universe that we know of is light, then it has to do with breaking the universal law of nothing goes faster than the speed of light. Now, given the time dilation singularity, given the regard for gravitational masses as exemplified by the twin paradox, I would say that time travel was possible by means of reworking the relative speeds of objects, or in this case persons, through space."

Penny's mouth hung open. She wondered how the hell her daughter knew all of that, especially if she wasn't a scientist. Sheldon, however, looked bored.

"I **am** a scientist, and I already know all of that already. How is it possible? Did I prove the Theory of Special Relativity? Did I create a new theory that turned out to be correct and applicable?"

Lara smiled and savored the moment of knowing more than the man that now stood before her. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that. That would be one of those little points in time I'm not supposed to mess with."

Sheldon's face fell. "Let me see that device," he stated flatly and motioned for Lara to hand him the controller.

"No." She pulled her arm back. "You don't know how to work it."

"How to work it!" Sheldon spluttered. "I created it."

"Not for another decade and you only developed the science not the actual device." Lara corrected.

"If Sheldon didn't create the controller, who did?" Leonard asked.

The apartment door opened and Wolowitz greeted them with, "Wass up , my nerdizzle." as Lara gestured in his direction.

"Nooo!" Sheldon wailed.

"What?" Howard stopped short then caught sight of Lara. "Who is this delectable creature?" He made his way over to her. A strange feeling of protectiveness came over Penny as Howard approached to pick up Lara's hand.

"Enchante." he oozed, kissing her hand. Lara laughed. Penny slipped herself between Howard and Lara while, interestingly, Sheldon positioned himself behind the younger woman.

"Howard," Penny began,, "this is…"

"Our cousin." Sheldon finished with a bewildered expression.

Howard looked up at Sheldon while Penny turned to give him a WTF face.

"**Our **cousin?" Howard repeated.

Leonard sighed. Sometimes, being the only normal one wore on him.

"Howard, this is Penny's cousin Lara and" He glared at Sheldon who had just opened his mouth again., "Sheldon, if you say one word I will use your toothbrush to clean the toilet and there is no UV light strong enough to deal with that." Sheldon closed his mouth. He still hadn't moved from behind Lara.

"How long will you be with us, goddess?" Howard leaned in once more.

"Seriously, Howard, I have no problem breaking your nose again." Penny warned. What was wrong with her? This urge to guard Lara from Howard's lechery was overwhelming.

"Perhaps we should go. I'm a little tired." Lara suggested. Penny nodded. The two women exited the apartment.

"Goodbye, Venus." Howard called as the door closed behind them. "I believe I've just met the future Mrs. Wolowitz." He enthused, rubbing his hands together. Leonard shook his head while Sheldon fought the inexplicable urge to snarl.


	3. Enemies

_September 3, 2011_

Penny and Lara entered Penny's apartment. "Wow, it looks just like the pictures." Lara exclaimed. Penny just gave her a look.

"Listen, Mo -"

Penny held up her hand. "Please, just call me Penny."

"Okay, Penny," the word sounded foreign on Lara's tongue. "I'm afraid I'll have to borrow pajamas. Maybe tomorrow we could go shopping?"

"You like to shop?" Penny tried to reconcile a girl who liked to shop with the one who had just spouted all that science gobbledygook twenty minutes ago.

"Oh, yeah. Especially shoes. We had to put in a new closet and Sheldon created an organizational flow chart for your shoes and mine."

"So we live in a house?" Penny sat on her couch.

"Not exactly," Lara admitted. "When they tore this building down, you bought the top two floors and had two apartments built."

Penny blinked. "I **bought** the top **two **floors? Am I a famous actress finally?"

Lara looked around; it had to be somewhere in this swirling mass of entropy. Finally, she spotted the object on the window sill, still in the same clear keepsake box. Lara walked over to get it and brought it to Penny.

"Do you recognize this?" Lara asked.

"Sure. That's the first Penny Blossom Sheldon and I made together."

Lara cleared her throat. "In my time, this sits in the lobby of your company building and is worth millions."

"I make Penny Blossoms for a living?" Penny's head was starting to spin.

"Good Lord, not anymore." Lara scoffed and the tone of her voice was so familiar. "Between investments and stock options, you live quite comfortably. The interest alone from one of your accounts is enough to live on without ever touching the principal."

"Good to know." Penny was trying to imagine a time when she wouldn't struggle to make ends meet. Lara rose and headed for the bathroom.

"Hold on," Penny grabbed her arm. "Do you live in the other apartment?"

"I have, on occasion."

"Who lives there on other occasions?"

Lara licked her lips nervously; she had to tread carefully now. "Sheldon lives there."

"You mean," Penny jumped up. "I'm still living across the way from Leonard and that Whack-a-doodle!"

"Just the Whack-a-doodle." Lara corrected with a slight smile. "Leonard is married and lives in Glendale."

Penny turned from her, went into her bedroom and grabbed her Hilary Clinton t-shirt for Lara to wear and a pillow.

"I hope you'll be okay on the couch." Penny said.

"Well, I'm no Tall Man from Cornwall so it should be just fine." Something tugged at Penny's memory at that statement but other thoughts crowded it out.

"So to sum up," Penny ticked off the points on her fingers. "I had a child, didn't become an actress, made a fortune with barrettes, built two apartments and I still live across the hall from Sheldon."

"Correct." Lara smiled. Penny grimaced and picked up the box with the Penny Blossom in it and headed to her room.

"Good night, Lara."

"Goodnight, Penny."

_XXXX_

_March 10, 2034_

__Leslie Winkle looked at the wall of scientists' photographs. Fifteen in total. Thirteen of those pictures were encoded with a specific colored check mark above them. Four red checks willingly accepted employment. Seven blue checks accepted employment after some "persuasion." Black checks indicated the science had been procured but, sadly, the scientist had to be eradicated in order to do so. Currently, only two pictures had black check marks.

Leslie looked at the final two pictures. Her heart gave a squeeze at the sight of one face then froze over at a glance at the other. She hoped Leonard wouldn't resist the offer. As for Sheldon, nothing would give her more pleasure than to have to "persuade" him.

_XXXX_

In the dark, Sheldon sat in a chair and prayed. He wasn't religious, but old habits die hard and he could use all the help he could get. With his head hung low and his eyes closed, he tried to forget the pain of the rope against his wrists or his arms stretched over the back of the chair. Thoughts of Lara began to inundate his mind. He was certain she could fix this - she was a genius after all.

Together, Lara and Sheldon had come up with a plan to stop this company dead in its tracks. He only hoped that she would find that one moment in time that could make all of this go away. Sheldon took another moment to thank his mother's god that Penny was not in California. Lord knew what he would do if they got ahold of her.

Sheldon's head perked up as he heard two sets of footsteps coming down the hall. The door opened and light flooded the room, causing Sheldon to shut his eyes against the harsh brightness. Judging by the timing between footsteps and the sound of the weight against the floor, he guessed one set belonged to a small, slight female and the other to a taller and not so slight male. Winkle and Kripke. Sheldon opened his eyes.

"So, Coopa," Barry began. "Seems wike you've gotten yourself in a pickew."

"A what?" Sheldon asked, curiosity getting the best of him.

"Pickew."

Sheldon gave Kripke a look of confusion.

"Pickle, Doctor Dumbass, Pickle." Leslie rolled her eyes.

"You'd think that after all these years, you would have done something about that little speech impediment of yours, Kripke," Sheldon said. Barry answered him with a punch in the mouth. Sheldon reeled back for a moment and then spat blood onto the floor, not without regret for the uncleanliness of it all.

"Now, Dumbass, tell us what happened to the TTM?" Leslie yelled.

"I would explain it to you," he said through swollen lips, "but, as an experimental physicist, I don't think you have the mental capacity to comprehend the science."

"Don't give me that, Sheldon. Everyone knows that real science is based on experimental data. What you do isn't physics, its philosophy. And crappy philosophy at that."

"I suppose that's why I am the one who has discovered time travel and you're working as a henchman," Sheldon retorted. That earned him another punch in the face.

It took longer to recover from the second assault. His head spun as he tried to focus on the pair in front of him, smug looks on their faces.

"Well," Kripke said through a grin, "It wooks wike we'll have to take him to the Big Kahuna."

XXXX

The figure behind the smooth ebony desk sighed heavily and glared at them. Kripke's knees were shaking; Leslie Winkle was impassive as always.

"Let me see if I understand," the voice held barely controlled rage. "Dr. Cooper was in his lab with his assistant and the device but, by the time you got the door opened, he was alone."

"Correct," Leslie said.

"You then proceed to search the lab, finding nothing."

"Yes." Kripke answered.

"Upon finding nothing, you, Kripke, felt the best course of action was to destroy the lab _**where the device I want was created."**_ Kripke shuffled his feet.

"If I may," Leslie interjected. "I told him to leave Dr. Dumbass' lab alone"

"Leslie," her boss interrupted. "Seeing as Sheldon is the one who possesses the Nobel Prize - not you - your insults are wearisome." Leslie felt the slow burn of embarrassment.

"Sir," Kripke spoke up. "My intent in destwoying the wab was to motivate Coopa to talk."

"And how did that work out for you?" Leslie sniped.

"Enough! Bring him in."

Kripke and Leslie Winkle turned to leave. Shortly after, the door opened and Sheldon was shoved unceremoniously through it. His Flash shirt was torn at the neck and splattered with dust and blood. One eye was swollen shut but the other glared with glacial hatred.

"Sheldon, Sheldon, Sheldon. For someone with such _**blinding**_ intelligence, you have a very slow learning curve." The figure rose from its chair; Sheldon remained silent.

"When will you accept that I will always defeat you whether it's Wizards of Ka'a, bowling or science?"

"Your overconfidence will be your downfall, Wheaton." Sheldon hissed. Wil Wheaton threw his head back and laughed.

"You should know since it is a fatal flaw of your own." He placed a hand on Sheldon's shoulder. The physicist stiffened.

"Work for me, Sheldon. I'll replace your old lab with a new one so you can recreate another one of those nifty time devices for me." Sheldon shook his head violently.

"Don't be so hasty." Wheaton advised. "Your new lab would be completely state of the art. You'll have everything you could ever want."

Sheldon gingerly touched his throbbing eye. His mouth twisted into a wry grin. Once, Sheldon had had everything he'd ever wanted. Wil Wheaton couldn't give it back to him. His only chance now was if Lara was successful.

XXXX

Leonard was thrust into a beige interview room; the door behind him was slammed shut and locked. "I can't imagine how you people treat your actual employees!" He yelled at the door. When he turned, Howard and Raj were seated at the long table. Leonard stiffened.

"Kripke is dumber than I thought if he thinks you two will be able to convince me to work for him." Leonard spat.

"Why don't you sit down and listen to what we have to say." Raj suggested.

"Leonard, it's important that you take what we are telling you very seriously." Howard said in Klingon.

"Why should I? Furthermore, how do I know this room isn't bugged and we aren't being watched?"

"It's not," Raj reassured him. "One of the conditions we agreed to, in return for guaranteeing your employment, was total privacy. Howard designed this room personally- it's impenetrable."

Leonard looked at them. He hadn't spoken to them since their "defection" two years ago. Sheldon wouldn't even acknowledge that he knew them.

"It is our hope that once you are presented with all the benefits of working here, you will agree to a contract" Raj was apparently playing the company man here.

"It's the only way to protect Sheldon." Howard urged still in Klingon.  
"Is he going to do this the whole time?" Leonard indicated Howard; Raj nodded. Obviously, this whole interview was not how it seemed. Leonard owed it to his two old friends to listen.

"Alright," He sighed. "Go ahead. Make your pitch."

"When we were recruited two years ago," Raj said. "We immediately saw that this company was beyond our wildest dreams."

"They're taking all the top technology out of the world. If the four of us are all here as employees, we may be able to stop them." Howard informed him.

"Sheldon will never work for Kripke and Leslie Winkle." Leonard scoffed, "and neither will I"

"They're figureheads." Raj stated. "They have no real power."

Leonard raised his eyebrows. This was news. On the other hand, it made sense. Kripke and Winkle never had their budgets slashed, their staff always increased, their equipment was constantly upgraded. They should have realized a more sinister force was behind them. When other renowned scientists either disappeared or began promoting this new company, it was too late to do anything.

"Who has the power?" Leonard lapsed into Klingon.

"Wil Wheaton." Raj whispered. Leonard instantly felt the tension slip away.

"Then this meeting is pointless. Sheldon will never give in to him." Howard and Raj both looked uncomfortable.

"I'm sure you have realized by now that this institution has no scruples when it comes to procuring what it wants. Why else do you think we came to work here?" Howard gave him a baleful look.

"I can't help you," Leonard shrugged. "Sheldon barely talks to me now- he's too paranoid."

"As he should be." Raj warned. "Wheaton won't rest until he has all of us under his thumb, especially Sheldon."

"Why?"  
Howard cleared his throat; Klingon always gave his laryngitis. "He wants us to make another TTM."

"We can't." Leonard protested. "There are no notes. Every piece of data is stored in …." His throat went dry. "Oh, God- Sheldon." Raj and Howard nodded. Leonard chewed nervously on a fingernail. Sheldon had been adamant that he alone would maintain the data as a safety precaution.

"Kripke insists we can do it and Howard and I have made a few mock ups but Wheaton is on to us. He knows Sheldon too well."

"Still, it'll never happen." Leonard placed all his hope in Sheldon's stubbornness. Raj and Howard exchanged another look.

"Leonard, it's only a matter of time before Kripke and Winkle figure out how to get to him." Raj said.

Leonard instantly thought of her. He had warned Sheldon about having her as an assistant but the physicist had waved him off. There was a no way to establish a connection. Once Sheldon had realized that his theories about time travel were going to become reality, he went through tremendous efforts to protect those he loved.

Leonard remembered the hardest decision Sheldon had made was leaving his name off the birth certificate.

"Impossible." Leonard sputtered. "There's no connection; the names are different."

"That's true. They haven't breached that stronghold but there is another." It took Leonard a moment to translate Howard's words.

"What other leverage could they possibly have?" Worry colored his words.

In response, Raj placed a Penny Blossom on the table. Leonard stared at the flower, his stomach twisting into knots. That was just as bad. He hoped Stephanie would forgive him when he told her tonight what he did and that Sheldon would understand.

"Show me the papers I have to sign." He sighed.


	4. Scrambled Eggs and Thai Food

_September 4, 2011_

Lara cracked an egg over the side of a dish with one hand and they both watched the slimy insides fall into the bowl.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Penny asked. "I've always wanted to be able to."

"My dad taught me. He's a pretty good cook."

Lara gave the shells a quick shake before throwing them in the sink, but not before a drop of egg fell to the floor.

"Oh no! Where's the Lysol? Quick!" Lara exclaimed.

The panic in her daughter's eyes caused Penny to rush to the disinfectant wipes under her sink. Lara grabbed a couple and wiped up the egg, along with the cabinets, the counter and half of the floor.

"Does this somehow affect the whole time continuum?" Penny asked, a little worried.

Lara stood up and threw the wipes away. "Of course not. Egg holds an alarming amount of bacteria. Do you know how fast bacterial cultures can grow?"

Penny stared at Lara for a moment as if her daughter had grown another head. She shook her own head to try to clear whatever strange thoughts were trying to seep their way into her brain at that moment. Instead of thinking about them, she changed the subject.

"So, do I learn how to break an egg like that? You know, since my husband knows how."

Lara suddenly became very busy whisking the eggs. "You and dad didn't get married. You're not together." She tried to avoid meeting Penny's eyes. "Much to the disappointment of my grandmother," she mumbled out of the corner of her mouth.

XXXX

_April 24, 2019_

"Ninety-five percent of the time, the key to success is execution." Sheldon lifted the egg, tapped it against the bowl then opened it using only one hand. "Approach a task as if you will succeed and, most likely, you will."

Lara lifted her own egg, mimicking her father's movements exactly. The egg cracked but didn't open. "Drat." She said. Sheldon removed it from her hands and finished opening it.

"What are you doing?" Penny stood in the doorway agog at the cartons of eggs and piles of shells surrounding the scientist and her daughter.

"If she's going to learn how to make scrambled eggs, she must first learn how to open an egg efficiently." Sheldon answered. Penny started to protest then thought the better of it.

"Mommy!" Lara cried. "You look so pretty. Did you remember to pack my Friday pajamas?"

"Yes."

"The pink ones, not the purple?"  
"Yes"

"Did you pack my toothbrush?"

"Yes"

"Did you remember to tell Teddy I'll be back tomorrow night?"

"Yes."

Satisfied, Lara picked up another egg and whammed it against the bowl.

"Sheldon, thanks for watching her."

"My pleasure, " he murmured watching as Lara stuck her thumbs right through the shell. She frowned and he handed her a towel.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come get her when I get home?" Penny asked.

"No!" Lara answered. "I always stay here on the weekends."  
"Sometimes, Daddy is busy, Sweetie." Penny reminded her..

"He's never too busy for me." Lara said confidently.

Penny shook her head. "Okay. I have to go." She planted a dozen kisses on Lara then automatically leaned towards Sheldon. Both adults stopped just before Penny's lips touched his cheek. Lara watched as neither of her parents seemed to know how to move around the other.

"Thanks." Penny gave Sheldon's arm an awkward pat.

"Be careful," He advised. Penny sauntered out the door in a cloud of jasmine. Sheldon's eyes followed her hungrily the whole way.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Kitten?"

"I don't like when she goes on dates either." Lara commiserated as she flawlessly opened her egg.

XXXX

_September 4, 2011_

Lara looked down at the shoes on her feet hen back at Penny. "Definitely." The blond assured her.

"It'll be so fun having something retro." Lara squealed, scampering to the cash register. Penny never thought she'd be one of those girls who "Caught herself pregnant." as her father would say but the empirical data was irrefutable. She blinked; God, she was beginning to think in Sheldon. Lara returned with her purchase. "Where to next?" Her bright eyes scanned the store.

"We can just browse, chat, get to know each other." Penny suggested.

"I already know you." Lara laughed. Penny couldn't argue with that.

"Am I strict?" Penny asked. Lara nodded and held up a pair of earrings.

"As strict as your father?" Lara showed Penny a necklace but Penny wrinkled her nose at it.

"No one is as strict as he." Lara stressed, recalling a few whacks with _A Brief History of Time _when she wouldn't eat her peas. Penny mulled that over while they searched through the clearance DKNY racks.

"When's your birthday?" The question was so sudden and asked so quickly that Lara almost answered. Ooh, her mother was smart and she couldn't let her guard down.

"I can't tell you that, Penny."

"Why not?"

"Because telling you my birthday or how old you were when you had me would allow you to manipulate circumstances and change what was destined to happen."

Penny examined a purple sequin tank top she didn't need but it was on sale.

"Do I love him?" Penny's voice was small.

"Dad?"

Penny nodded.

"More than shoes." Lara assured her. 

XXXX

_March 16, 2009_

"Way aye blow the man down"

Penny passed the flower to Sheldon who squirted glue then sprinkled glitter on it.

"Let me see it." Penny stopped singing.

"Penny, you're throwing off the rhythm." Sheldon protested.

"I'm sure we'll be able to get the rhythm back." Penny smiled at the double entendre of their words; Sheldon was clueless, as usual. He sighed and handed her the Penny Blossom.

It was a deep red, resembling a zinnia. Sheldon's glitter sparkled from every other petal and there was a topaz colored rhinestone for the center.

"I think I'll keep this one." Penny set it aside.

"Why?"

"I like it," She shrugged. "The next time you and I fight, I'll look at it to remind myself what beautiful things we can create when we get along and, hopefully, I won't kill you."

For once, Sheldon didn't know what to say.

XXXX

_September 4, 2011_

The two women sat at a table outside of a café. Lara looked suspiciously at the pedestrians who walked by. She knew that in this time, no one would have a clue what she was there for or even where – or when she was from. That didn't stop her from feeling like the entire world was watching.

"This is why I'm here," Lara said quietly and handed Penny the notebook. Penny put down her coffee and examined it. It was the girliest thing she had ever seen and Penny knew girlie. The cover was iridescent lime green with purple and pink sparkly flowers emblazoned on it.

"This looks like it came straight from CVS," Penny told her.

"I can assure you this is earthbound and has nothing to do with that barbarian asteroid."

"What?" Penny shook her head. "No, Sweetie, CVS is a drugstore." Lara looked at her blankly.

"Never mind," Penny muttered and opened the notebook. It was filled with writing but none of it was English as far as Penny could tell. There even appeared to be some Mandarin worked in.

"Remember, you have to keep this safe," Lara warned. 'Never lose it, destroy it or, heaven forbid, give it to anyone."

"Hold on," Penny touched Lara's arm. "Why me? Why not one of the guys. Clearly they know more about this stuff than I do."

"Penny," the tone of Lara's voice was so familiar it surprised her mother. "When will you understand? You're the only person left whom Sheldon trusts."

XXXX

Lara and Leonard walked up the stairs carrying several bags of Thai food. The door to 4A was open as well as Penny's door and they could hear her.

"C'mon Sheldon. What difference does it make?"

"What difference does it make? Are you listening to yourself?" Sheldon was aghast. Leonard and Lara had reached the landing; Penny and Sheldon stood facing each other, arms crossed and eyes glaring.

"You're talking about a distance of like six feet." Penny pointed out.

"More like eight. By keeping apartments evenly spaced, the structure of the building is fortified…"

"I don't care!" Penny yelled, throwing up her hands.

"This is cool." Lara gushed to Leonard. I've heard about these fights from Mom but I've never actually seen one."

"They don't argue in the future?" Leonard was stunned.

"They have an interesting dynamic in my time." was all Lara said while Leonard wondered how much more interesting Penny and Sheldon's dynamic could get.

"This," Sheldon pointed to his desk chair, "is where I work and this," he pointed to his spot, "is where I eat."

"You've eaten in my apartment before." Penny's face was red.

"Only under extreme duress." Sheldon snapped.

"Wow! They're really angry", Lara commented.

"Angry? " Leonard chuckled. "Oh no. This isn't even close to angry. More like petty annoyance. Like you get with mosquitoes."

"You know what, Sheldon?" Penny waved her hand to encompass all of him. "_This_ is six feet two of crazy so stay here and eat dinner!" She stormed past Leonard and Lara. "I hope you choke on it!" Her door slammed.

Sheldon appeared in the doorway, blinding in his Rubik's cube shirt. "At least I'll be choking in the place where I was meant to choke", He shouted before slamming his own door.

"Does he realize that made no sense?" Lara asked Leonard as they walked to Penny's.

"Sadly, for all his intelligence, no."

XXXX

They sat around Penny's coffee table eating.

"How's the Pad Thai, Sheldon?' Penny asked

"Delightful as always." came his voice from the speaker on her phone.

XXXX

_March 12, 2034_

"Sheldon, are you home?" Penny opened the door. Sheldon was at the sink with his back to her.

"What are you doing home?" His voice had a touch of panic. "I thought you were in New York for four more days." He still hadn't turned around.

"Negotiations finished early. Where's Lara? I've been trying to get her all day."

Sheldon finally turned and Penny gasped when she saw his face. "Oh my God, Swee…Sheldon, what happened?"

"Lab accident." He said tersely then planted himself in his spot, holding an ice bag to his left eye

"Is Lara okay?" Penny knew her daughter was Sheldon's unofficial assistant.

"She is perfectly safe."

Penny looked around. "So where is she? We have dinner plans." Sheldon let his head fall back on the couch. It was no use- he couldn't lie.

"Lara's in Pasadena." He finally said.

"Where in Pasadena?"

"Not **where** in Pasadena, **when** in Pasadena." He clarified and braced himself for his second black eye of the day.


	5. Baby Ruth

_March 12, 2034_

"I'm ready to listen now." Penny said, placing an ice bag over Sheldon's right eye. He explained Lara's mission as simply as possible all the way through to the destruction of his lab and meeting with Will Wheaton.

"They could have killed you." Penny gasped.

"I am more valuable alive than dead." Sheldon assured her. "I know you don't believe this, but Lara is safer in 2011 than here. I shudder to think what would happen if her lineage on both sides was known."

Penny nodded though she knew he couldn't see her. Her eyes fell on a photograph on the end table. It was a candid shot Leonard had snapped when Sheldon received his Nobel Prize. In the picture, Sheldon is holding thirteen month old Lara who is chewing on the medal around Sheldon's neck. He is smiling down at Penny who is beside him with her hand on the lapel of his tuxedo. She is smiling as well but looking off to the side. Penny has the next picture in her bedroom. The pose is the same except she is looking up at Sheldon, still smiling. The two of them had done everything to shield Lara especially as Penny's fortune and Sheldon's notoriety grew.

"Penny," Sheldon rested his pianist hand on her leg. "She's there with everyone who loves her- Leonard, Raj, Howard, me and you. You have to trust me."

Penny picked up the hand she hadn't held in years. "I always do, Moonpie."

XXXX

_September 4, 2011_

Lara walked into apartment 4A without knocking. It was something that was automatic to her and she didn't even think about it as she was doing it. Sheldon turned away from the television and stared at her as she plopped down on the couch beside him and opened a Baby Ruth. He continued to look at her as she stuffed nearly half of the candy bar in her mouth. When she still didn't acknowledge his existence, he gave a slight cough.

Lara slowed her chewing and gazed up at the physicist. "Want some?" she said with her mouth full of peanuts and caramel.

"That's disgusting," Sheldon frowned. "Don't talk with your mouth full."

Looking ashamed, Lara swallowed the food, wrapped up the leftovers and put it back in her pocket. "Sorry."

"May I ask why you have graced me with your presence or do you always randomly walk into strangers' apartments and repulse them with your eating habits?"

"You're not a stranger," Lara answered.

"You are to me."

Lara looked down at her hands for a moment and tried to remember that he wasn't saying that to be hurtful, he was only saying it because it was true. This was an exercise in patience she learned from her mother long ago in dealing with Sheldon.

She took a deep breath. "When you – the future you – sent me back in time, you told me that we had to find a specific point in time that would alter the course of the company's history rendering it harmless in the future. Neither of us know what that point in time is, but I think I should tell you that it probably has something to do with Wil Wheaton."

"WHEATON! I knew it!"

"Yes, yes, I know," Lara replied. "He's your mortal enemy. The Magneto to your Professor X. The Master to your Doctor. The Kelly Rippa to your Kathy Lee Gifford. The point is, how are we going to stop him if we don't know what or when we're supposed to do? What are the chances that I've arrived in the right time period to stop him?"

"Would you like to do the math?" Sheldon asked.

XXXX

They sat side by side on the brown leather couch drawing on imaginary whiteboards. Sheldon was out of markers. He looked at Lara's "board" and erased what she had just written.

"Check your math." He suggested. Lara sighed- she always hated imaginary whiteboard time.

"Tell me again why we're waiting for Uncle Leo."

"Penny is at work and Leonard has the car we need in order to go to the office supply store to procure more Expo markers." Sheldon stared intently at the empty space in front of him, a frown creasing his brow. "Are you sure this is the correct formula? It's not making sense."

Lara looked over at the air in front of him. "That's it and that's all I know." She said holding her hands out in such a perfect imitation of Penny that Sheldon was instantly reminded of when he taught Penny physics.

"I just can't believe you're not driving yet." Lara huffed, walking to the refrigerator.

"Yet? I drive in the future?"

"You were driving by the time I was born." Lara cracked open a Mountain Dew. "You had to."

"Interesting." Sheldon commented, trying to ignore the fact that she just blatantly stole a beverage. "Aha!" he cried, writing furiously in the air but then he paused. "Why did I have to drive?"

Lara walked over to him and wrote an invisible figure. Sheldon's eyes followed her hand movements and he nodded.

"Mom was working a lot and you helped take care of me. You said you weren't going to be held to the mercy of cabbies and ambulances in case another adhesive duck crisis arose, whatever that means." Sheldon paused; he almost had the time formula balanced but the mention of adhesive ducks threw him.

XXXX

_November 16, 2009_

They finished the third round of "Soft Kitty" and Sheldon made to leave.

"Wait!" Penny grabbed his arm again. "You can't leave."

"Why not?" Sheldon ached to flee the apartment. This was all wrong. He couldn't handle all the different reactions flowing through him. Physical ones caused by his inadvertent groping of her and his deliberate peeking. Discomfort at not knowing how to be comforting in the emergency room. Desire which made him lean in closer with every "purr, purr, purr." He was on sensory overload and staying here with Penny looking helplessly at him was only exacerbating the situation.

"What if I choke on my own drool?"

Sheldon sat down on the bed again. "The statistical probability of that is very low." He hoped that was comforting.

"Stay with me until I fall asleep." Penny pulled him back so she could nestle her head on his chest.

Heat flooded Sheldon. She was literally driving him crazy, causing him to experience thoughts that hadn't drifted through the brain of Homo Novus since he battled through puberty. Awkwardly, he slid a long arm under her, ensuring his hand landed precisely on her waist lest Penny think he was taking advantage of her drugged state. Penny threw a leg over his and slid her foot down. Sheldon immediately called to mind the Arctic, the snow, the biting wind to no avail. Penny's breathing deepened; her snore began to rattle. Sheldon began to slowly slide out from under her.

"Sheldon?" Penny's eyes opened.

"Yes, Penny."

"I don't know what I would do if you weren't around." Her eyes closed again.

Sheldon settled himself back on the bed, finally giving in.

"I ask myself the same thing daily." He replied as he closed his eyes.

XXXX

_September 5, 2011_

When Penny and Lara sat down for lunch, a very disturbing picture began forming in Penny's mind. Perhaps, disturbing was too strong a word but it was definitely perplexing. First, Lara made them switch tables. Twice. Then she asked endless questions about the menu finally insisting that her soup be 180 degrees and she had a thermometer to check it.

"Are you always this fussy?" Penny was horrified.

"Yes." Lara shook out her napkin. "There are only four restaurants back home which we frequent."

Penny began choking on her bread. Lara went to get up but Penny waved her off.

"I can't wait to see Uncle Raj and Uncle Howard tonight," Lara told her over the appetizer.

"Hey, how come Sheldon is the only one you don't call uncle?" Penny gestured with her fork. Lara swallowed the potato skin which had suddenly turned into a lump in her throat.

"Please," She harrumphed. "Sheldon is _nobody's_ uncle. For a while, he tried to get me to call him Dr. Cooper."

"That sounds like him."

"Didn't work out well. My baby voice made it sound like Dr. Poopa. Howard loved it."

Penny laughed. "After lunch, we should go for manis and pedis. It'll be more fun doing it with another girl instead of Leonard."

Penny and Lara ended up picking the same shade of nail polish. They sat side by side getting foot massages.

"Tell me more about what it was like for you growing up." Penny asked.

"Crazy." Lara commented. "What else could it be with four geniuses running around?"

"They're all a part of your life?" Penny's eyes were wide.

Lara nodded. "Sure. Raj takes me camping to see meteor showers. Howard has taught me how to build, well, everything and he coached my high school math team. Leonard's the daring one."

"Leonard?" Penny almost dropped her magazine in the water.

"Oh yeah," Lara enthused. "We go on quests all the time - rock climbing, surfing, hiking. He taught me how to drive AND how to make rocket fuel."

"Wow." Then Penny added, "Sheldon, I suppose, just flits in and out when he isn't solving the mysteries of the universe." She frowned.

"Penny," Lara turned chastising eyes on her mother. "Sheldon deserves more credit. For one thing, he tells the best bedtime stories."

"Bed time stories?" Penny repeated.

"Don't sound so surprised. You're in them. They're all about Queen Penelope and Sheldor the Conqueror. He even wrote them up and bound them into a book for me." She paused. "You designed the cover, you know."

Penny's mind seemed stuck on one piece of information. "Sheldon puts you to bed?"

"Once I became a teenager, he stopped though he does come to say goodnight but, yeah, he put me to bed every night when I was little." Penny tried to imagine that. It wasn't hard to do. He'd put her to bed when she dislocated her shoulder but still…

"What are you thinking?" Lara prompted.

"I'm just trying to reconcile the Sheldon you know with the one who issued two strikes to me last week because I got crumbs all over his stupid spot when I dropped a muffin."

"He still does that." Lara assured her.

"You seem to know an awful lot about Sheldon, like you're closer to him than the others." Penny's eyes were sharp. Lara licked her lips nervously and her right eye gave a twitch.

"He lives across the hall. What do you expect?" She said weakly. The manicurist finished her toes and was leading Lara to the drying stations.

"Lara," Penny called. "Why is Sheldon so different? What caused the change?"

"The same thing that causes all of his changes, Penny. You."

XXXX

_March 12, 2034_

"I stiw don't undastand why you wet him go." Kripke balled up his fist as he paced back in forth in front of the desk.

"Patience, Barry, Patience." Wheaton said. His hands were in front of him, folded in such a way that reminded him of Patrick Stewart when he played Captain Picard. "You see, Sheldon's not a normal man like you or I. We won't be able to beat the answers out of him. No, you see, he's a man of deep connections and emotions. He thinks with his heart. I remember when I beat him at Wizards of Ka'a by just mentioning that my grandmother died."

Leslie snorted from her chair in the corner. "What a dumbass baby."

Wheaton smiled. "Yes. This is why we're going to hit him where it really hurts. You know that blonde woman he always used to hang around. The one that owns that Penny Blossom empire?"

"You mean Penny?" Leslie asked, trying not to sound to condescending to her boss.

"Yes, Penny. Bring her to me. Let me have a talk with her."

Both Leslie and Barry smiled evilly and turned toward the door.

"Oh, and one other thing." The two scientists turned toward Wil who had sat back, allowing his face to be dramatically covered by shadow. "Find out about that assistant Sheldon had that disappeared. I want to know what she has to do with all of this."


	6. Photographs

_March 13, 2034_

Leslie pored over Sheldon's folder once more. There had to be something she was missing - that they all were missing. Everyone had a price; Leonard had even agreed to work here much to her relief. Leslie laid out all the pictures they had of Sheldon. Her attention kept going back to two shots.

The first was of Sheldon in his lab with the mysterious assistant. Both Sheldon and the girl were looking at a piece of paper, their hands bracing themselves on the desk. It was a very unassuming shot. Who was the girl? She wasn't family- his twin had no children and neither did his brother and she was too young to be a love interest. She put the picture down and turned her attention to the other picture.

It was a picture of Penny outside the corporate offices of Penny Blossoms. She was standing behind a podium and Sheldon was off to the far right, gazing at her. Leslie's lip curled. They had an unbreakable connection- this waitress turned mogul and the Nobel Laureate- but damned if she could figure it out.

Leslie sighed and put the picture down and rubbed her eyes. She stopped mid-rub. Unbreakable connection! She grabbed the two photos and lay them side by side. She looked at Penny whose green eyes leapt off the print then at the girl with Sheldon. Even though it wasn't a close-up, the color was unmistakable and _identical_. Her gaze then flicked to Sheldon's hand. Despite her visceral hatred of the man, Leslie was a woman who had needs and knew how to fulfill them and Sheldon's fantastic hands had made an appearance in her fantasies once or twice. As Leslie looked at the first picture, even she could see the hands of Sheldon and those of his lab assistant were impossible to tell apart. She began to snicker then laugh. Oh God, it was almost too easy! She ran a hand through her curls. Perhaps, after she spoke to Wheaton, she would do something with her hair.

XXXX

Penny put away the designs she had been staring at. Penny Blossoms was branching out into fine jewelry hence her trips to New York's Diamond District. It was later than she had meant to stay but a security guard could walk her to her car.

"Burning the midnight oil, Corporate Barbie?"

Penny's head shot up and her eyes narrowed. "Leslie, how unpleasant to see you."

"I get that a lot." Leslie strode into Penny's office. Penny's hand dropped beneath her desk and gripped the baseball bat. She had owned it since her softball days. Her father didn't call her "Slugger" for nothing.

"You should know I have security here." Penny warned, rising from her chair but keeping the bat low.

"And I have a Taser." Leslie said pleasantly.

Penny forced her face to remain impassive and rounded the corner of her desk. "I suggest you leave before I go all Nebraska on your ass." She was so intent on her back swing and her target that she failed to notice Barry Kripke's entrance. It took one shot from the Taser and Slugger was out.

XXXX

Sheldon paced in his apartment. That infernal woman! Over twenty years and still she could give him a direct trip to Jewish hell. He specifically told her to call when she was leaving work. The sky was as dark as his telephone. Sheldon glared out the window, thrumming his fingers on the glass. His phone suddenly burst to life and a quick glance at the screen showed Penny's number. Relief flowed through him.

"Penny." He blurted.

"Hello, Dumbass." Leslie greeted. "I'm sure your hearing my voice on this phone says more than I possibly could about the enormous paradigm shift that has occurred."

"You've gone too far. She has nothing to do with this."

"Tsk, Tsk. Typical man always underestimating the value of a woman. Sheldon, haven't you ever heard the expression 'the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world'?"

Sheldon was actually shaking with rage and fear. He pinched himself to hold off the faint that was definitely coming on.

"Let me speak to her."

Leslie held the phone away from her ear. "Hey Barbie, let the good doctor know how you are doing."

That's when Penny screamed.

XXXX

Sheldon got off the phone after agreeing to head back to Wheaton's office. He paced around, hands slapping his back pockets. Time. He needed time. Ironically, he was the man who discovered how to control it and now…now it had come back to haunt him. He had only one other option. He strode over to his Green Lantern figurine and popped open the buttocks. A tiny device fell into his palm no bigger than the packets of soy sauce that accompanied his chicken and broccoli. Sheldon used a tiny stylus to type on the key pad.

XXXX

_September 6, 2011_

They were going to bring Lara to the Cheesecake factory on Tuesday. That morning, Leonard and Sheldon decide it was time to tell Raj and Howard although Leonard was still hesitant.

"Given that Wolowitz built the device, it's only a matter of time before we'll need him and where he goes, there is Raj." Sheldon explained as the two of them headed for work.

"Sheldon, who do you think the father is?" Leonard asked. The physicist stopped.

"I haven't thought of it at all. Presumably, her paternity has no bearing on the future outcomes therefore it is a variable not to be considered." Sheldon continued down the stairs.

"C'mon," Leonard prodded. "You're not the least bit curious?"

"I am curious about many things, Leonard. I am curious about how I figured out time travel, from whom are we hiding this information, how are we going to stop them and, finally, when is this pointless conversation going to end?" Sheldon opened the lobby door.

"It's just hard to imagine Penny with a child."

"You don't have to imagine it- the reality was in our living room last night." Sheldon waited while Leonard unlocked the car doors.

"I'm just saying it would be interesting to know." Leonard ignored Sheldon's sigh.

"Fine Leonard, I'll play along. It's you. You're Lara's father."

Leonard looked sideways at Sheldon. "Look, I'm all for recessive genes but given her stature and frame, we can safely assume there is no Hofstader in her."

"Then Penny probably got drunk and fell on the closest virile male." Sheldon looked out the window- a sure sign he was done with the current topic.

Leonard kept turning it over in his mind. Sheldon's fingers tapped lazily on his pant leg. Leonard stared picturing Lara's hand holding the TTM but the light turned green before he could fully process the idea.

XXXX

At The Cheesecake factory, Sheldon and Leonard placed Lara between them while Raj and Howard occupied the other side of the booth.

"I've never been here." Lara commented.

"I thought Cheesecake factories were everywhere." Howard said.

"No, they went out of business. Everyone is too health conscious." Lara explained. Raj would peer over his menu, shake his head and sink back down. There was something familiar about this girl but he couldn't put his finger on it. Penny ran over.

"Sorry. Sorry." She puffed.

"Whoa! Nice uniform." Lara sniggered.

"Hey, watch your tone." Penny pointed her pen at the girl.

"Lara, don't talk to your mother like that." Sheldon scolded absently. The silence was deafening but Sheldon continued to peruse the menu.

"I'm Sorry?" Howard stammered. "Did you just call Penny her _mother_?"

Sheldon looked up to find Penny glaring at him. "Oh dear, I think we were planning on breaking the news later."

"Really? When were you going to let me know?" Penny barked.

"Penny," Leonard sought to mediate. "In light of the information we have, it's only prudent to get Howard and Raj on board as soon as possible."

"Whatever!" Penny threw up her hands and walked away.

"She didn't take our order." Sheldon cried.

"You'll eat what I bring you and you'll like it." Penny hollered back.

XXXX

Raj and Howard asked all the appropriate questions. Penny flung four fully assembled bacon barbecue cheeseburgers in front of Howard, Leonard, Raj and Lara. Sheldon got soup and half a sandwich.

"So, do I finally find the Future Mrs. Wolowitz?" Howard leaned in while Sheldon craned his neck to see if anyone else in the restaurant had the other half of his sandwich.

"Oh yes, you're in a very happy, committed relationship." Lara munched a French fry but her eyes sparkled with mischief.

"Really?" Howard panted. "Was it love at first sight?" Lara's eyes fell on Raj who gave her a shy smile.

"More like someone who was always right before your eyes." Leonard looked up from scraping the cheese of his burger at the teasing tone in her voice. 'No way' he mouthed as Lara winked at him.

"This is good.' Howard leaned back. "The pressure is off. I just have to wait for the love of my life to arrive." Raj stole a fry from Howard's plate.

Lara and Leonard burst into giggles.

A cough from Sheldon brought Lara back to the present. Or the past. She still wasn't sure about the correct terminology.

Lara cleared her throat. "The point of my being here is that we have to find a point in time that will affect the future of the company that is determined to steal this technology." She held up the TMM for the group to see. "Now, Sheldon and I have done the math, and as far as we can determine based on company profit projection and time related vector algebra, the event I'm supposed to stop should be happening within the week."

"There is however, a two-point-four-four percent margin of error," Sheldon added.

"It's the significant figures. They get me every time." Lara gave a breathy laugh. Penny, who was still standing there, immediately looked up and gave her daughter a strange look. Lara stared back, confused.

"Hey, check it out guys," Howard interjected. He hadn't been listening and was instead searching Twitter on his phone. "Wil Wheaton is auditioning for a role in the new Star Trek film. Dear God, I hope they won't let Wesley Crusher anywhere near that."

Sheldon and Lara looked at each other, both understanding at the same time.

"When is the audition?" Lara asked half standing.

"Looks like Thursday afternoon, why?"

"Because," Lara sat back down as a slightly creepy smile slowly spread across her face. "We're going to help Mr. Wheaton get the part."

XXXX

Lara was in the middle of her cheesecake when the TTM went off. They all stared at it.

"What's happening?" Sheldon asked. Lara grabbed for it and read the message traveling across the screen. Her hand flew to her mouth and tears filled her eyes. Instinctively, she reached for Sheldon.

"They've got Penny." She whispered.


	7. Coffee Almond Fudge

**(Authors' Note: Please forgive us for taking so long for this update and leaving you hanging from a cliff. We needed a week off. But we're back and we hope you enjoy what we've written. And thank you all for the kind reviews!)**

_March 13, 2034_

Penny struggled against the ropes that tied her arms behind her. If she could slip her middle finger through that loop, she might be able to loosen her bonds. One thing Penny knew was knots.

"Penny, I have to say the years have been kind to you." Penny bared her teeth as much as the gag would allow.

"Now," Wil Wheaton stroked his beard. "If you play nice, I won't mark up that beautiful face of yours." Penny's eyes fell on the burn mark on her upper arm for just a second.

Leslie yanked the gag out of Penny's mouth. "Bitch!" Penny gasped.

"Nice. Do you kiss Sheldon with that mouth?" Leslie quipped.

"Penny, I need you to tell me who this young lady is." Wheaton held the picture of Lara and Sheldon in the lab up to Penny's eyes.

A pang of longing went through Penny as she looked at the two people who had sole possession of her heart. She began to reply when Wheaton interrupted her.

"Before you answer, you should understand that, like a lawyer, I never ask a question I don't already know the answer to."

XXXX

_September 6, 2011_

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," Sheldon snarled, his voice reaching a comedic higher octave.

"You know," Howard nodded as he edged forward on the right side of the couch, "I never thought I'd say this, but I agree with Sheldon." Raj rigorously nodded in agreement.

All five of them stared at Lara, expecting her to admit that it was the dumbest plan she had ever come up with in her entire life. Instead she held up her hand and shook her head.

"You're wrong. This plan is brilliant."

Again, everyone else in the room looked expectantly at Lara, hoping she would provide more than that. She did not.

"Please tell me in that gorgeous little head of yours you realize that this plan is completely insane." Howard finished the sentence through clinched teeth.

"Lara," Leonard gave Howard a look that told him to shut up before Lara punched Howard in the throat. "What Howard is trying to say is, even if we did manage to sneak past security and find the right place where they're keeping the data for casting, how are we supposed to add Wheaton to the cast list without them noticing?"

They all looked at Lara once again, but this time she was giving them a half sideways smile and looking at each of them with a sparkle in her eye as she wiggled a bit in her seat.

"You forget," she said as she pulled the TTM out of her jacket pocket. "We have time on our side."

Leonard, Raj and Howard looked at each other. Lara's all too familiar look of general impishness was making them extremely uncomfortable.

XXXX

"I can't believe we're actually doing this," Penny grumbled.

"Well, the new issue of The Flash is out and everyone but you is too busy failing to understand Lara's simplest of instructions to give me a ride to the comic book store. Ergo, you are driving me."

Penny rolled her eyes and shook her head. "No, Sheldon, I mean I can't believe we're actually going to go through with Lara's plan. You know it involves a whole mess of crimes, right?"

"Penny, I'm well aware of the potential consequences of our actions, but this is Wil Wheaton. He must be stopped."

"It's just…it's all too weird. I can't wrap my head around it."

"I understand," Sheldon said in his best 'there, there' voice. "Though you lack the cognitive capacity to comprehend the entire situation, I have no doubt that your nearly masculine strength and corn-husker spirit will prove handy should we run into any need for physical-"

Penny jerked the wheel to the right causing Sheldon to shriek. She pulled over to the side of the road and pulled her parking break so hard it nearly came off in her hands. Sheldon stared at her with a mix of anger and pure terror.

"Say something nice about me." She said flatly and turned to look at him in the eyes. Sheldon began to feel incredibly uncomfortable and looked down at his feet. "Now!" She added causing him to jump.

"Did I not just complement you on your masculine strength and corn-husker –"

"Goddamnit, Sheldon, if you don't say something nice to me…" she thought for a second, "…I'll get out of this car now and you will have to drive it home."

"How will you get home?" Sheldon answered looking at her again and calling her bluff.

"_**I **_don't have a problem with taking the bus!" she nearly shouted.

She watched as Sheldon's jaw strengthened and set as it always did when she was winning.

"I'm waiting."

Sheldon looked into her eyes and Penny almost gasped. His clear blue eyes were staring deeply into hers, more deeply than she'd ever seen him look at anyone in the four years she had known him. She became very aware of her breathing and tried her best to slow it down and keep it quiet. The silence in the car wrapped itself around her heart and squeezed.

"You are constantly annoying the hell out of me; you are always there, under my feet. You disrupt all of my routines, nay, you disrupt my life. I find myself confused and frustrated at the very thought of you - and I am constantly thinking of you because you're the most wonderful and beautiful person I've ever known and if you tell anyone this I will climb to the roof of our building and jump off."

Sheldon turned and looked at the car door, suddenly fascinated with the inner workings of the lock mechanism. Penny slowly picked up her jaw which was currently on the brake pedal and pulled back out into traffic.

"Thank you, Sheldon," she said shakily.

"I also like it when you give me a ride to the comic book store," Sheldon murmured to the door lock.

XXXX

_December 14, 2011_

Penny waited two months to tell Sheldon; she wanted to be sure. He had no immediate reaction. They sat on the brown leather couch, waiting for Leonard to return with dinner. Sheldon opened his mouth as if to say something but nothing came out. Finally, he rose from his spot and headed to his room.

Penny wasn't angry. After all, this was a man who considered it a crisis when his laundry detergent switched from FDC Blue 10 to FDC Blue 15. She had had two months to adjust; Sheldon had only twenty minutes. He'd process it and then Penny would tell him she was keeping the baby.

Leonard arrived with Raj and Howard behind him. Penny hoped she could eat being simultaneously famished and nauseated.

"Sheldon! Dinner!" Leonard yelled down the hall but there was no response.

"I think he's working out a problem." Penny offered.

"He's hell-bent on this time travel theory." Leonard grumbled.

Penny managed to eat and actually felt better for having done so. Howard had just finished clearing away the containers and Raj was setting up HALO when Sheldon entered the living room. He paused in the threshold, taking in Penny and his friends. All the people who mattered most to him besides Meemaw. Penny glanced up and gave him a small smile.

Sheldon strode over to the couch. He pulled Penny up and wrapped her into a deep, thorough kiss. "I'm going to be a father." he announced proudly to the room.

XXXX

_July 22, 2012_

Penny entered Sheldon's room. "Sheldon!" She whispered.

"Danger! Danger!" He shouted and his cries caused the baby in Penny's arms to start squalling."Dammit, Sheldon. What the hell is wrong with you?" Penny said furiously.

"Penny, people can't be in my room."

"Oh for God's sake, we are not _people_. We are your daughter and her mother."

Sheldon rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock. He groaned- an interruption right in the middle of REM sleep. Penny thrust the knot of wailing baby at him.

"You have to take her. I'm exhausted and she won't go back to sleep."

Sheldon took Lara and looked her in the eye. "Now, Miss, it is 2AM and you are disrupting everyone's circadian rhythm." He was rewarded with an ear-splitting scream. "Good Lord, that is unpleasant."

"Uggh, Sheldon…" Penny began but he held up a hand and tucked Lara into the crook of his other arm.

"You." He motioned to Penny. "Get in the bed."

Penny blinked. "Your bed?" Sheldon nodded as Lara continued to fuss. Penny climbed in next to Sheldon. They hadn't been in a bed together since, well, now Lara was here. Sheldon drew the covers over Penny. He placed Lara on his chest and began to softly sing the Elements Song. Penny smiled as his accent twanged the end of each element. It always came out when he whispered. Lara settled down to squeaks and grunts and Penny felt sleep overtake her just as Sheldon pressed his lips to her forehead.

When Leonard walked in to see why Sheldon wasn't up for work, he found the entire Cooper family deeply asleep. Leonard had seen Dr. Stephanie Barnett at the hospital when Penny delivered Lara. She had given him her number. It was time to use it.

XXXX

_September 7, 2011_

"Okay, is everyone aware of what he or she is going to be doing on tomorrow?" Lara said over boxes of Lo Mein and dumplings. They all nodded their heads, mouths full.

"Good…" she trailed off as she found her leg bouncing anxiously. She was rarely prone to nervous habits, but she couldn't seem to stop. She was worried about her mother. Unfortunately, the TTM was not a two-way communicator so she had no way of knowing what was happening in her time without going back. But her job was not done here. The best way for her to help was to complete her mission. That thought helped her relax a little, but she couldn't help but worry.

There was a tiny part of her, however, that knew her mother would be okay. Her parents may not be together, but she knew they still loved each other and that her father would never let anything bad happen.

XXXX

Lara didn't mean to spy on them but her curiosity got the better of her. Sheldon and Penny were in the laundry room and she hovered just outside the door, able to see but not be seen.

"Once again, you have ignored my precepts about stain removal and pre-soaking." Sheldon admonished.

"Shut up or I'll throw my red bra in with your white load." Lara giggled- her mother was so sassy.

"While I am terrified by that threat, it is nice to see some of your old fire back."

"Sweetie, why are we doing laundry on a Wednesday?"

"Because after the events of tomorrow, we might end up getting arrested and I would like to at least have clean clothes if I'm going to be in jail."

Penny paused for a moment, trying not to get lost in his logic.

"Sheldon, what do you make of all this? You know, Lara, time travel, the whole ball of wax." Penny hopped up on one of the washers next to the one Sheldon was filling.

"I don't make anything of it." He shook out his Batman shirt. "The future is something we can neither foresee nor control. Lara is not here to stop events but to manipulate them in order to ensure a more favorable outcome for all."

"Really?" Penny said, "because I find the whole thing to be a real mind-bender."

"As do I," Sheldon agreed. "Bazinga."

They sorted clothes quietly for a while. "Lara said you and I still live across the hall from each other." Penny offered.

"That's good." Sheldon pulled a load out of the dryer on the other side of Penny. "You know how I abhor change." When he stood, he was right between her knees with the laundry basket on her thighs.

Penny leaned across the basket. "Why do you think we're still living across from each other, Sheldon?" Her voice was low.

"I suppose it's because good neighbors are hard to find." Sheldon's hands gripped the laundry basket tightly.

"Is that all we are? Good neighbors?" Penny moved the basket so now there was no buffer between waitress and physicist. Lara's eyes widened. Was this how it happened? She hoped that they wouldn't do anything embarrassing while she was there.

"You're my best friend." Sheldon offered, stepping a millimeter closer. "That could also account for our maintaining proximity over such a stretch of time."

Penny hopped down from the washer so now she was leg to leg and chest to chest with a very twitchy scientist.

"I think there is another reason." Her hands crawled up the front of his grey striped shirt.

"You do? What?"

Penny slid herself past Sheldon, who closed his eyes at the contact, to pick up the basket of dry clothes.

"You're the genius. You figure it out." and Penny exited the laundry room. Lara stood breathless beside the vending machine. Holy crap on a cracker! This might be easier than she thought.

XXXX

Lara's IQ isn't as high as her father's. She's not sure what it is because Penny forbad him to test her but, over the years, father and daughter have been able to hypothesize that she falls somewhere in the mid-160's. As for her memory, it's not quite eidetic but it's close.

There is one memory that she has reviewed so often that the details are blurry, the colors soft and she honestly can't say if it's real or imagined.

She is very young- still in her highchair and not talking. It was a time when the apartment across the hall was still empty. When her father made pancake sin the shape of Sesame Street characters as her mother, clad in a Green Lantern shirt, danced around the kitchen to Shania Twain. "Dance with me, Sheldon." Penny pulls at his robe. Sheldon puts a pancake on Lara's tray-Cookie Monster- and does a few steps around the sprite that is Penny.

Lara knows it happened- this time when her father danced and her mother touched him with ease. She just doesn't know when it all ended.

XXXX

Knock, knock, knock.

"Penny."

Knock, knock, knock.

"Penny."

Knock, knock, knock.

"Penny."

The door swung open. Sheldon peered in to see that Penny had balled herself up on the couch.

"I brought ice cream," he said softly. Penny didn't reply. Sheldon floundered in the doorway. He hadn't technically been invited inside. Social convention mandated one received an invitation before entering a person's residence. On the other hand, Penny's silence indicated a damsel in distress was there. Ignoring the prickles on his scalp that often alerted him to a social gaffe, Sheldon went inside.

"There, there." He placed himself on the couch. "Sheldon's here."

"I can't stop worrying about this plan. There are so many variables that could go wrong." Sheldon raised his eyebrows at her use of "variables" but kept quiet. "Why am I so worried? Why does part of me want to do everything I can to keep Lara out of this?" Penny's eyes filled up. "What if something happens to her? To any of you? Then what will I do?"

Sheldon knew that the best response here was silence. Over four years, he had assimilated that Penny often employed the rhetorical question as a means of clarifying a point such as when she had asked him what kind of doctor removed shoes from the gluteus region.

"It's coffee almond fudge." Sheldon said when he felt an appropriate amount of time had passed.

Penny wiped her eyes with a balled up tissue. She took the container from him and said thank you. There was even a spoon in the bag.

"You're not having any?" She inquired.

"I find it difficult to consume ice cream that contains other elements due to the inconsistency in the ratio of ice cream to add-ins."

Penny's spoon hovered half way to her mouth. Just when she thought he couldn't get any stranger.

"But, please, enjoy." Sheldon motioned for her to eat. She swallowed the spoonful- it was so good. Sheldon always bought her the most expensive ice creams; she had no idea where they came from because she never saw them in the stores.

She dug into the container.

"Sheldon, you have to try this." He cast a wary eye at the spoon Penny had just taken out of her mouth.

"Right." She nodded. Penny bounced to her kitchen and returned with a second spoon.

Sheldon sat fidgeting on the couch, resplendent in his TV test pattern shirt, and yellow thermal. Penny chose to ignore the burgundy corduroy pants he had on. Someday, she was going to get that boy in a pair of jeans. She took the new spoon and dipped it into the container. Sheldon reached for it.

"Uh ah," Penny shook her head, pulling the spoon away. Something about Sheldon always made her mischievous, made her push at his boundaries. Penny always sought to make him react to her. She stood up and over Sheldon's knees.

"What…what are you doing?" His eye twitched frantically.

Penny leaned over. "Open wide." She used her best Marilyn Monroe voice.

"This is a highly unconventional way to eat ice cream." Sheldon squawked. Penny brushed the spoon across his lips. Automatically, his tongue darted out to taste.

"Good, huh?" Penny leaned in closer; Sheldon nodded.

"Do you want more?"

Even Sheldon recognized she wasn't talking about ice cream. He lifted his head and their noses bumped. Sheldon snaked a hand up and tangled it in Penny's hair, dragging her ever nearer.

"Penny." He whispered.

"Yes, Sheldon."

"You're dripping ice cream all over my favorite pants."

Penny looked down and her eyes widened. Never in a million years did she ever think she – or anyone else for that matter - could have **that** kind of effect on Sheldon. Somehow, the thought that she could elicit arousal from him made her stomach dip. She felt the familiar yet uncontrollable clench between her legs. She looked back up into his icy blue eyes. It was a long shot, but she had to try.

"I guess we're going to have to get you out of those, then."

His right eye twitched just a fraction and if she hadn't been looking at him so intently, she would have missed it. She wanted to ignore it, but she knew Sheldon better than anyone else, and she knew that the tiny movement was a signal to back off. She sighed and closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she whispered and started to move away. But she couldn't move away because his hand only gripped the back of her head harder while his fingers tangled in her hair and a strong arm pulled her forward. And because her eyes were still closed, she was shocked when she felt lips crushed against her own.

It was a bit awkward, his lips were pressed so hard against hers, she could hardly move. But when his mouth opened on hers, a shiver shot down her spine and she leant forward increasing the pressure. She felt his tongue against hers darting and dancing around it, unsure of itself. The kiss was sloppy and unpracticed and unbelievably exciting. Before she could think about anything, her legs were straddling his and she could feel him grinding against her. She gasped and broke the kiss, her head rolling backwards so that she could feel him more fervently. The sound of his panting made her wet.

"Sheldon," she whispered pleadingly.

Somehow, the man who couldn't detect sarcasm heard the instruction in her voice and he stood up and half carried her in the direction of her bedroom. They stumbled and tripped over everything they possibly could have but that didn't stop the kisses and bites that landed on their necks. Penny let out an animalistic grunt when she felt her back hit hard against the closed door of her bedroom. She felt her heart fly and her body heat up in response to the pressure between him and the door. He pressed harder against her as he fumbled to open it.

An un-Sheldon-like expletive left his mouth as he became increasingly frustrated with the doorknob. She smiled and in one cool motion put her hand on his and turned. They heard the click and resumed their activities at a much more maddening pace. As if they were somehow connected on a deeper level, they both started to tear at each other's clothes at the same time. They continued to kiss chaotically even when one of her buttons got caught on Sheldon's watch. While his lips were attached to hers, his long fingers tried in vain to untangle his wrist from her chest.

She grabbed his hand and yanked it free. One of her buttons flew across the room and hit the wall. Sheldon turned to look, but she was already pushing him down onto the bed.


	8. Sheldon's Daughter

_March 13, 2034_

Kripke lifted the scalding metal off Penny's upper arm. Wil Wheaton sighed. "Why must you make this difficult, Penny? Just answer the questions."

Penny kept her mouth shut. Sweat coated her forehead but she refused to cry out. Silently, she asked for forgiveness from every calf she ever branded as a teenager. Penny looked at her latest wound.

"Are you making a 'W' on my arm?" She managed.

"Yes. You have something to always remind you of Sheldon. I only wanted equal representation." Wheaton walked forward, leaning in toward Penny. "I don't really care about the girl in the picture. She's just another weapon in my arsenal if it turns out you don't mean as much to Sheldon as I think you do. What I really need to know is: Where is the notebook?"

Kripke and Winkle flanked Wil Wheaton on either side. Penny took the opportunity to work on the knot which loosened even more.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't pway stupid." Kripke cuffed the side of her head before he began heating the metal again.

"Kripke, she's not playing anything." Leslie said and the two of them laughed like hyenas. Wheaton silenced them with a look then glanced at his watch.

"We may not need that, Barry." He motioned to the white-hot metal before turning on a large flat screen TV. The screen brightened and divided itself into eight squares showing various doors and corridors to Wheaton's building.

"If my calculations are correct and Leslie's call was effective," Wheaton stroked his beard. "Our hero should be arriving. Right. About. Now."

Penny looked up just in time to see Sheldon round the corner of a hallway. She dropped her head, curtaining her face with her hair. Her shoulders slumped; she was the picture of defeat. Leslie gave a cold smile. What she failed to notice was, though the rope remained around Penny's wrists, her hands were free.

XXXX

Sheldon strode down the hallways of Wheaton's building. He could hear the theme music in his ears and almost felt the metaphorical red cape fluttering behind him. He had been very deliberate in his selection of t-shirt for this encounter.

He found the correct door and gave it a savage push. Nothing budged. He looked down at the door handle and gave it a gentle turn, opening the door just slightly. He gave it another strong push and it slammed open, startling the three occupants inside.

"Oh my God!"

"You're here!"

"Finally!"

Their words tumbled over each other. Sheldon's eyes sparked like a gas flame as they fell on each one of them, evaluating the roles they would play.

"He's got Penny," he told Leonard, Howard and Raj. He was answered with a collective gasp.

"Not only is it on," Sheldon said, his Texan accent thickening. "It's Junior Rodeo on."

XXXX

September 8, 2011: 7.30am

Penny stirred the oatmeal and waited for Lara to get up. Soon, the younger woman appeared at Penny's counter. Penny knew scientists made observations, recorded those observations then used them to draw conclusions. She had been recording many observations since Lara's arrival. Now, it was time to test the hypothesis.

"I have a question." Penny said, passing Lara the oatmeal.

"Shoot." Lara said.

"What is your last name?"

Lara didn't even blink. "Same as yours."

Penny shrugged. Obviously, she had never married according to her daughter.

"Do you have a middle name?"

Lara put down her spoon. "Penny, I don't think I should answer that." Penny returned her gaze.

"I want you to know that I am fully prepared for your answer. I will do nothing to interfere with what is supposed to happen."

"But still…" Lara hesitated. "I don't see how that information is relevant."

I'm testing a hypothesis." Penny appealed to the girl's love for science. "And, if you must know, I won't interfere because, quite frankly, I'm a little curious now." She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"Eww! Gross!" Lara exclaimed while Penny laughed.

"Tell me your middle name." Penny urged. Lara took a deep breath and hoped she wasn't messing with time too much.

"It's Leigh." She admitted.

"Thank God," Penny sighed with relief. "For a minute there, I thought you were going to tell me it was Spock."

XXXXX

_12.45pm_

Several times during lunch Raj put down his fork and opened his mouth to speak only to resume eating.

"Will you just say it, whatever it is!" Howard exploded. Leonard looked up from the comic book he was reading. Sheldon was locked in his office with Lara trying to pinpoint the Wheaton audition. Raj drank a large swallow of water, closed his eyes for a second then blurted, "IthinkSheldonisLara'sfather."

There was a bloom of silence which Leonard broke after a minute. "You noticed, too? Good, I thought I was going crazy there for a while."

"What are you talking about?" Howard demanded. "There is no way. Rocks have more sexuality than Sheldon."  
"Not when it comes to Penny." Raj pointed out. Leonard squirmed in his chair.

Howard shook his head. "I completely disagree. Penny would go to bed with me before Sheldon. Look at the things they've done: he strings her underwear up on a pole; she shoots his cushion with a paintball gun. He gives her a strike because she drops a muffin; she deliberately chews with her mouth open. They don't know how to look at each other without glaring. The two of them could argue for a week over whether the sky is blue and, **Oh-My-God**, they totally had sex, didn't they?" Howard clapped a hand over his mouth and sniggered.

Raj reached across the table to Leonard. "How are you feeling about all this?"

"Obviously it happened." Leonard replied. "I don't feel great but Penny and I have been over for some time now. Given the way Lara talks about me and my relationship with her, I guess I made peace with it in the future since Lara and I are pretty close."  
"Do you think it already happened?" Howard, ever the voyeur. Both Leonard and Raj shook their heads.

"We could be wrong." Leonard smile hopefully.

"Dude, she has the same laugh, the same tilt of the head, the same _hands_, for cryin' out loud."

"I know," Leonard mumbled. "The hands are what tipped me off."

"Do you think Sheldon knows?" Howard drank some Sprite. Leonard pushed up his glasses.

"I don't think he knows in our time but Lara talks about her father so he must have been around. It's not like Sheldon to shirk responsibility."

The three of them quietly mulled over their thoughts as the cafeteria emptied around them.

"I can't say I'm surprised." Raj mentioned.

"Please, you could have knocked me over with a feather." Howard scoffed. Leonard gave a heavy sigh and pushed the peas around on his plate.

"I always knew," He finally admitted. "it was there the day the three of us met. Sheldon was all fidgety with his messenger bag out in the hallway and she fell for him the minute she saw his whiteboard." Leonard gave a bitter laugh. "What's really funny is, at that time, I told Sheldon that the children I had with Penny would be smart and beautiful. He said 'also imaginary' Leonard looked up and there was pain in his brown eyes. "Even then he knew the future."

XXXXX

_1.15pm_

Sheldon walked toward the cafeteria at Caltech with Lara by his side. He watched her from the corner of his eye, matching him stride for stride and puzzling over the overwhelming sense of déjà vu that had developed as they headed for lunch. Lara took a turn that was a little known shortcut to the cafeteria.

"You seem very well acquainted with the ins and outs of this building." Sheldon commented.

"I ought to be," Lara chirped. "I've been roaming these hallways since before I was born." When Sheldon gave her a glance of confusion, she continued, "You guys didn't like leaving Penny alone in the later months of her pregnancy. Once I was older, Raj had me in the planetarium, Leonard and I would run experiments in his lab. Howard taught me how to drive the Mars Rover which **I **never got stuck in a ditch, by the way." Her voice trailed off; Sheldon was looking at her with a mixture of confusion and jealousy.

"And I had no part in your edification?" He held a door open for her.

"Sheldon, you strapped me into a baby Bjorn and did quantum mechanics with me on a whiteboard as soon as you realized my grasping a marker wasn't a reflex but a deliberate action AND…" She touched his arm above the elbow just like Penny always did. "Every Thursday we would have lunch together here because they make the best peach cobbler second only to your Meemaw."

A small smile appeared on Sheldon's face. "Today is Thursday."

"I know." Lara replied.

As they moved through the line, Sheldon picked up a conversation they had started in his office.

"I fail to see how getting Wheaton a part in a movie will change events."

Lara sighed. "It's the small things that alter the course of a person's life. The unexpected joys and the lingering regrets."

"Pure hokum." Sheldon countered. "Regrets are the results of poor planning and faulty execution. Why, in the future according to you, I unravel the mysteries of time and win the Nobel. I will achieve everything I ever wanted."

Lara placed peach cobbler on Sheldon's tray and hers. She looked up at him and her eyes were dark with sadness.

"Sheldon, that may be true but, in my time, you have more regrets than anyone I know." Her eyes scanned the crowded room. "Oh, there's Uncle Leo!" She waved and walked off, leaving Sheldon with his mouth open.

XXXX

_March 13, 2034_

Sheldon took the device Howard, Leonard and Raj had been huddled around when he made his grand entrance.

"It works only in the sense that it lights up and makes noise." Howard explained. "I don't know the formulas to manipulate time."  
"That's simple enough." Sheldon murmured, turning the device over again. This new one was a far cry from the clunky remote he gave Lara. It was sleek- all rounded corners and touch pad activated. "You've made quite an improvement in the design."

"Wheaton spares no expense." Raj said.

Sheldon kept his eyes glued to Howard's creation. He spoke almost to himself, "We have to make this model at least _**stop**_ time so Wheaton will think he has a fully operational device. Perhaps even rewind."

"Can you do that" Leonard frowned.

"Briefly," Sheldon answered, "but, hopefully, it will convince him. When Leslie Winkle called, I could hear Penny. She was screaming." Sheldon's voice broke on the last word. He placed the pseudo-time machine down and strolled over to the lab's window. He stared at the stars in order to compose himself.

Leonard, Howard and Raj didn't know where to look. Sheldon's back was straight, his hands clasped behind him, his head tilted toward the universe he'd finally conquered.

"Still?" Howard whispered to Leonard, his disbelief evident in his tone and expression.

Leonard nodded. "Always. Despite everything, he never wavered, faltered or considered someone else."

Sheldon cleared his throat and turned back to face them. If his eyes were a little too bright and the tip of his nose a bit red, his friends pretended not to notice. As far as they were concerned, Sheldon was completely under control.

"Raj," Sheldon's voice grew stronger as he continued speaking, "bring me a marker and a whiteboard. Leonard, start the simulation software and Howard, crack that thing open and start to rewire it. We have fifteen minutes before I have my final showdown with Wil Wheaton."

XXXX

_October 2, 2013_

Penny dragged herself up the final flight of stairs. She couldn't wait until the renovations for this building were completed because then she was going to take the elevator every day. Even if there was a fire.

Being a mother and managing a fledgling business were exhausting. Sheldon helped as much as he could. After winning the Nobel, he decided to take a vacation which translated into free day care for Penny. All she wanted to do when she got inside was cuddle her baby, take off her shoes, have dinner and watch Dr. Who or BattleStar while canoodling with Sheldon. She opened the door.

Sheldon was standing at his whiteboard. He didn't even turn around when she called out "Hey!" Her fatigue made her irritation flame instantly. She glanced around but there was no sign of Lara. All her toys were put away and the apartment was absent of her baby chatter. If Sheldon had put her down for a nap at this hour, Penny was going to kill him.

"Sheldon, where's Lara?"

The physicist turned from his board and looked at her blankly.

"Lara." Penny repeated. "Fifteen months old. Green eyes. YOUR DAUGHTER." Her voice took on an edge of hysteria. Sheldon looked down at his feet as if expecting to find the baby there.

"I don't know." He said for probably the first time in his life.

Instantly, they both sprang into action, running frantically through the apartment. The bathroom, to Penny's relief, was empty.

"Oh God!' She heard Sheldon moan and her heart dropped into her shoes. She dashed to Sheldon's room to see her daughter on the floor happily munching an Amazing Spiderman comic book. From the tattered remains, it looked like she had been dining for some time. Ink stained her fingers and the corners of her mouth. Penny snatched her up to pull wads of arachnid-enhanced man out of her mouth.

"Sheldon, what the hell?" She fumed.

"She was under the whiteboard and must have wandered off." He explained.

"Must have! Must have!" Penny yelled "Were you even watching her?"

"Obviously, she escaped my attention" Sheldon reiterated.

"She could have choked, you jackass and you're out there calculating the circumference of your enormous ego."

"Actually, I think I may have figured out how to create the time device."

Penny faced him; he crossed his arms over his Superman shirt. She snarled at him and stalked past holding the baby.

"When is it going to end, Sheldon?" She demanded.

"You'll have to be more specific."

Penny placed Lara on the floor and gestured to the whiteboard in response.

"Science?" He was incredulous. "Never! My work has only just begun."

Penny covered her eyes with her hand while Lara tugged at her sandal straps. "Then what was the point of the Nobel?"

Sheldon looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "The Nobel is recognition that I am one of the greatest minds of the twenty-first century which means I have to work even harder. Did you think that I would retire and wait for my dotage?"

"This isn't how I thought it would be." Penny exclaimed. Sheldon pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Penny, I understand you are upset but I am unclear as to why."

A pain appeared over Penny's left eye. She was just so tired of having to explain basic **human** everything to him.

"I am upset," Her voice rang through the apartment., "because , in your mind, science is more important than making sure your daughter doesn't inadvertently kill herself!"

"That's not what I said!" Sheldon barked. Lara startled at his tone and began to cry.

"Nice." Penny sneered, picking up the baby. "This is so like you, Sheldon. You get all defensive when someone attacks your precious physics but when it comes to a family, a personal life, you couldn't care less."

"That's not fair."

"I don't care about being _fair_!" Penny hollered. "I care that this is not the life I planned. Everything was supposed to be different once you got that **fucking** medal." Lara's eyes widened and she wailed even louder.

"I understand now. This is about marriage again." Sheldon retorted. "If that's the issue, we can go to City Hall right now for all I care."

"Oh, so now it doesn't matter if we're married or not!"

"Stop twisting my words!" Sheldon bellowed. "You are being completely unreasonable and blowing everything out of proportion."

"Welcome to my world, Sheldon!" Penny shot back. Lara screamed and reached for her father but Penny held her back.

"What is it you want Penny?" His shoulders slumped.

Penny gave a soundless laugh. She wanted her business to take off. She wanted to be famous and on the red carpet. She wanted some of the stretch marks from Lara to fade and she wanted, just once, for Sheldon to understand all that instinctively.

"You know, I wish that time device was already made because there are a few things in my life I would definitely alter."

Sheldon narrowed his eyes. "Are you saying you regret all this? That you regret having a child?"

"No." She hissed. "I just regret having one with you."

She wanted the words back the second she said them. They were grossly unfair. Sheldon was a better father than she ever thought he would be and his devotion to Penny was unshakeable. Still, a light went out in his eyes once her words hit home causing him to simply turn from her and go to his room.

XXXX

Some time later, Penny and Sheldon sat silently across the table from each other. Their lawyers volleyed words like "custody", 'visitation", "unlimited access" and "child support" while their clients quietly wondered how they had ever let it come this far.

XXXX

_September 8, 2011_

"Alright, let's go over this one last time," Lara whispered from behind the building across from Studio 45 on the Paramount lot. She didn't need to whisper as they had already sneaked past the first gate and were at least a block away from any security officer, but one could never be too careful in these types of situations.

"Come on, Lara," Penny whined. "We've been over this a million times. You made us write an essay each detailing our parts in this plan."

"Still, we need to make absolute sure. Just tell me the quick version," Lara whispered, hoping that would be a clue to make her whisper too. It didn't seem to be working. "And remember, I only have five minutes of time stoppage."

"You two stand guard around studio forty five," Sheldon began in a whisper. "It is then that I use my stellar tumbler skills to pick the lock."

"Okay," Penny jumped in, a little too loudly for Lara's taste. "You guys then distract the guards while Lara pushes the time stoppy thingy and for some reason that is all sciency, we are the only ones who won't freeze."

Sheldon rolled her eyes at her terminology.

"Very good," Lara answered. "After I stop time, you will take the script and switch it for the one in Wil Wheaton's hand. Then we all get the hell out of here before time begins again."

"Meanwhile, Wolowitz and Koothrappali will be hacking into the casting director's files and changing the casting information to include Wheaton's new character and Leonard is waiting with our get away vehicle," Sheldon added.

The other two looked at her and nodded. It was now or never.

They raced through the building to number 45. Penny and Lara were standing guard at various other points. Sheldon knelt before the lock with his ear pressed to the door. In seconds, he nodded indicating it was open. Penny clutched at the scripts. She was chosen for the big moment because Wheaton was the least familiar with her in case anyone noticed anything. As soon as Sheldon opened the door, Lara pushed the button and time stopped.

"Go, Penny." Lara whispered; Penny didn't move. Oh no! She looked at Sheldon who was blinking rapidly.

"What…How…Now what?" Lara blurted. Sheldon yanked the scripts from Penny and dashed into the dark theater.

"Hurry!" Lara practically screamed as she watched her father race away from Wheaton and the casting directors. Sheldon made it to the edge of the stage when Lara caught movement out of the corner of her eye.

"Hold it!" One of the casting directors cried out. Sheldon froze in his tracks.

"Shit." Lara swore under her breath. What was wrong with the device? It was supposed to give them more time than that.

The director stood up and walked across the room toward Sheldon. Wil Wheaton looked up from his script.

"Sheldon Cooper?" Wheaton said, his voice filled with surprise and malice.


	9. It All Started With The Big Bang

September 8,_ 2011_

"Sheldon Cooper?" Wil asked the frozen figure in front of him. Sheldon didn't know how to respond. Everything was in jeopardy. He sneaked a peek at Lara and Penny, but they just stood and stared at him wide-eyed and confused.

"Excuse me, Mr. Cooper?" The casting director called out. Sheldon swallowed. He was never good at lying so there was no way out of this situation.

"Why don't you have a script?" The director asked him. The question was so odd, Sheldon could only shake his head. "Memorized it already? Oooh, we have an overachiever here. Can someone tell Mr. Too-Good-To-Read-Lines here to get on with the scene?" The overly effeminate man pivoted around and walked back to his seat.

Wheaton shook his head to clear the shock. "You're auditioning for Star Trek? Oh this is going to be too good."

Wheaton began his lines. The original script called for a captain of one of the Federation starships, a heroic character that Sheldon doubted Wheaton could pull off. The boys spent the better part of the week, writing a new script that included an evil Wesley Crusher. Luckily, Sheldon actually did have all of the lines memorized.

As he and Wheaton read through the lines, Lara noticed the directors had abandoned their own scripts and were staring open mouthed at Wil. This might work out after all.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" The effeminate man called out. "You!" He pointed a finger at Sheldon. Lara held her breath. "You are terrible! How dare you stink up the place with that filth you call acting! Clearly, you are no match for the brilliance that is Mr. Wil Wheaton. Wil, that was magical!" The man ended the sentence in a sing songy voice before turning back to Sheldon. "Get off my stage and take your posse with you before I have you kicked out."

Wheaton smirked at Sheldon, convinced that he had beaten the physicist once again. Sheldon gestured for Penny and Lara to follow him out of the building. Before the doors closed behind them, Wil could have sworn he heard "Wheeeaaaatooonnn!" floating in from outside.

XXXX

_March 13, 2034_

Penny's arms had gone numb but she didn't dare move. Relief had surged through her when she knew Sheldon was in the building but now, it had been replaced by fear that neither of them would get out of here alive and Lara would be forever stuck in 2011. To calm herself, she began reviewing a lifetime of conversations with the physicist.

_Sit next to me._

_When you understand the laws of physics, Penny, anything is possible_

_Sing "Soft Kitty' to me_

_One cries because one is sad. For instance, I cry because others are stupid and it makes me sad._

_You're dripping ice cream all over my favorite pants_

_Penny, she's got your eyes_

_Sheldon, I had two orgasms and conceived a child. I think it's fair to say appreciation was shown._

_Penny, I love…_

Knock, knock, knock

"Wheaton!

Knock, knock, knock

"Wheaton!

Knock, knock, knock

"Wheaton!

Penny's head shot up. Wheaton chuckled, "Right on time." and went to open the door. Once he moved, Penny had a clear shot at Leslie Winkle. She pulled her arm free of the ropes and punched her square in the throat. Leslie dropped to the ground, gagging.

"Duck!" Sheldon hollered. Penny dropped beside Leslie and waited to feel Kripke's hands on her but nothing happened. She looked up and saw Barry Kripke completely frozen- hands outstretched, face twisted with shock. A slow, methodic clapping filled the room.

"Excellent work, Sheldon. You saved the fair maiden and gave a demonstration all at the same time. Pardon the pun."

Sheldon's chest heaved and Penny could tell he was close to fainting. She stood behind Wil Wheaton who faced Sheldon.

"You have what you want, Wheaton. Now let her go."

"Now why would I go and do that, when I have everything I need right here. Oh, except for the journal. Where is that, by the way?"

Sheldon sneered. "You'll never find it. I've hidden it."

"Just like you've hidden then time travelling device?" Wheaton grinned. "Oh, and your daughter?"

Sheldon didn't know what came over him at that moment. He always prided himself on his use of mental agility rather than physical dominance. However, when he heard Wheaton mention Lara, a rage bubbled from below the surface, escaping years of repression. So, at that moment, Sheldon punched Wil Wheaton in the face.

Before Wil even hit the floor, Sheldon was gasping and holding his now throbbing hand.

"Good Lord that hurts!" he shouted.

"Sheldon!" Penny shouted from the floor. Quickly, Sheldon put the device down beside him and worked to untie Penny the rest of the way.

Before either of them could stop him, Wil grabbed the device and pointed it at Sheldon.

"Time's up, Moonpie." Wil clicked a button on the device as Penny screamed.

"There was only one demonstration set on that," Sheldon said with a smirk. "Good luck getting Kripke back."

Wheaton's features twisted and contorted with rage. "Cooopppppeeeerrrr!" He yelled out in frustration.

Sheldon grabbed Penny's hand and pulled her out of the room. They ran down the stairs, bickering the whole way.

"I kept waiting for you to go all Nebraska on their asses." Sheldon snapped

"I was tied up, in case you didn't notice." Penny retorted  
"Didn't you manage to free your hands?"

"Yes."

"And you clearly demonstrated that you could take Leslie Winkle."  
"Yes."  
"All you had to do was flash Kripke and that would have distracted him."

"I know."

"Well, then what took you so long!"

They reached the bottom floor where Leonard was waiting for them. A smile crossed his face once the two of them came into view.

"Let's go." he urged, pushing them out the door and into the back seat of his car. Penny arranged herself in the seat; Sheldon sat next to her, his eyes closed.

"Sheldon?"

"Yes, Penny."

"In an ever changing world you are my single point of consistency. If my life were expressed as a function on a four dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, you would be my 0-0-0-0."

Sheldon pulled her to him and kissed her for the first time in twenty-two years.

"I love you, too, Penny."

XXXX

_September 8, 2011_

Wil Wheaton was pacing up and down in his living room, cell phone to his ear.

"Yes, I know! Isn't that the best? I can't believe I'll be playing the role of Wesley Crusher the way he's meant to be played. This is the best thing that has happened to me. Ever."

He stopped at his desk and picked up a piece of paper with the words "Wheaton Technology" scribbled on top and ripped it in half.

"Oh, tell Winkle I'm dropping the funding for her research. I won't be needing her anymore."

XXXX

They all returned to apartment 4A with triumphant cheers and pizza.

"Who's up for a bit of Halo?" Howard asked as soon as they piled into the living room. A show of hands indicated that they would all be blowing each other up with plasma grenades before long.

"I still don't understand why I froze and you guys didn't," Penny said as Howard set up the game. She turned and looked at Lara and Sheldon who stood side by side. They looked like they could be twins, even more so than he and Missy.

"Well," Lara began, "while the notes in the notebook certainly helped, and by the way I'm going to need that back, the fact that I am no scientist and Sheldon here has yet to discover time travel, our resources were severely limited."

"The beam that the device produces had a limited range. Apparently you stepped out of that range, despite my clear instruction not to do, and thus were not protected. It was at that point, I had to take over."

"You're might knight in freaking armor," Penny said and she winked at Sheldon.

"I always help a damsel in distress," Sheldon smirked.

XXXX

When Lara was a child, she thought she had the best living arrangements in the world. She lived on the top floor of a brand new building. No one was above her. Mommy lived in the apartment on the right and Daddy was in the apartment on the left. Most of the time, her pa rents left their doors open since a person needed a key to make the elevator reach their floor and the stairwell was guarded by a door that had a coded lock so her parents felt very safe letting her flit between apartments or play alone in the hallway.

As she grew older and viewed the world with an adolescent's fixation on the tragic, the romantic and the tragically romantic, she began to hate the way her parents lived. It was all so stupid- Penny and Sheldon separated by only eight feet of hallway but it may as well have been eight million feet. They were so polite to each other it set her teeth on edge.

"Sheldon, please make sure Lara gets to the orthodontist on time. Last time she missed her appointment because Leonard had her in the lab."

"Certainly, Penny."

They would stand there for a few minutes, looking at each other. Eventually, Penny would cough to keep the words from spilling out and Sheldon would "ahem" until his throat was clear. It just made her bat-crap crazy to see two people so in love with each other do nothing about it. Seriously, there was a reason Romeo and Juliet were written as teenagers and not a physicist and a CEO in their late thirties.

However, Lara felt worse seeing them now in 2011 when all the potential and none of the heartbreak was there. Sheldon sat in his spot with Penny on his right. Howard was kvetching about the havoc his sweet and sour pork was wreaking on his digestive system. Leonard was talking Lara through the intricacies of HALO but Lara kept one eye trained on the pair on the sofa.

Sheldon kept pulling on Penny's upper arm as he whispered strategy in her ear; Penny was nodding seriously but rolling her eyes at Lara and trying not to laugh. Occasionally, Penny's hand would barely pat Sheldon's thigh when he began waxing on too long about the game. Lara wanted to beg them then and there to remember this moment when it had been so easy for them to just **be** together. Her eyes filled with tears and she excused herself to run to the bathroom.

After a few minutes, there was a gentle knock.

"Sweetie, are you okay?" Penny was on the other side. Lara opened the door to find Sheldon had joined her mother.

"It's kind of weird," Lara faltered. "I'm just feeling a little nostalgic and may be a little homesick as strange as that sounds."

"That's not strange at all." Sheldon assured her.

"Sheldon, I think I know what we can do to make her feel better." Penny said. Lara watched as a silent conversation passed between green and blue eyes.

"Of course." Sheldon agreed. "This always helps me." he informed Lara. He and Penny cleared their throats and began,

"Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty. Little ball of fur…"

It took all of Lara's self-control not to cry.

XXXX

_September 8, 2011_

Lara climbed the last step and went out onto the roof. The five adults of her world had their backs to her as they looked out over Pasadena. She smiled as she noticed they had, unconsciously, arranged themselves according to height with Leonard and Sheldon being the bookends of the lineup.

"For the last time", Penny cried when Sheldon finished whispering in her ear, "there are no dirty socks up here!"

"It's a shame I won't be able to woo the future Mrs. Wolowitz with the details of my heroism this past week." Howard lamented while Raj patted him comfortingly on the shoulder.

Lara made a little coughing noise causing them to turn as one. She slid her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. This was going to be hard. How does one tell people still in one's life they will be missed? She was going to miss the innocence of them- Leonard with all his romantic notions albeit about the wrong woman, Howard still lusting after imaginary women, Raj's thoughtful silences, Penny as a carefree young woman instead of being reined in by the concerns of motherhood and work, Sheldon intensely cerebral so different from the man she knew who led with his heart instead. Her father had warned her that she needed to pick the appropriate point in time to return. A time when she wouldn't be interweaving herself too much into the past.

"It's probably a good idea if I leave now." Lara announced.

They all started talking at once, protesting, cajoling, pontificating.

"That's a terrible idea." Leonard said. "We haven't gone paint balling yet."

"I'm afraid if I stay any longer, the whole time continuum thingy will get disrupted." Sheldon rolled his eyes at her poor vocabulary but Lara was thinking specifically of the point when Sheldon and Penny had a moment to make...her. Whoa! She should leave before this all became too weird.

"Nonsense!" Sheldon spoke up. "You know perfectly well that time doesn't work that way. You have already changed the course of the future by interfering with Wheaton, you are hardly going to do anything since the fermion/boson superstrings are only set to-"

"Sweetie, Sweetie, "Penny placed a finger to Sheldon's lips. "Nobody cares about that right now." She turned to face Lara, leaving her finger in place. Sheldon's eyebrows had climbed so high on his forehead they looked like they would take off into the night sky at any second. Still, he stopped talking.

"Stay one more night." Her mother pleaded with her. "Sheldon can make pancakes in the morning."  
"Can I have Frodo with coconut for the fur?" Leonard asked; Sheldon glared at him but gave a nod.

"Okay" Lara agreed. "Sheldon's pancakes are not to be missed."

"C'mere," Howard motioned to her. "Come see the city as it is now so you can compare it when you get back."  
Lara walked towards them as they all faced the lights again. Her eyes caught a slight movement. Away from the eyes of the others, Penny and Sheldon's hands had intertwined. Lara gave a sigh of relief. She could safely stay one more night. Her life had already begun.

XXXX

_September 9, 2011_

They all lined up to say goodbye. Lara glanced at the clock- twenty minutes to get through all five of them. She hugged Howard and Raj then moved quickly to Leonard.

"It was great meeting you, 'niece'"

"Oh, Uncle Leo, this was such fun. Dangerous but fun just like everything I do with you." She hugged her favorite homunculus once more.

Sheldon fidgeted during her exchange with Leonard. Lara stood in front of him, not eye to eye but close enough.

"Sheldon." She raised an eyebrow.

"They physicist looked at her, mimicking her gesture but also narrowing his eyes. The others watched, stunned, as he pulled her into an authentic embrace.

"I can't wait." He whispered into her ear.

"Not long now." Lara whispered back. She wasn't surprised at all that Sheldon had figured everything out.

Penny was weeping openly which instantly set off Lara.

"It's not like you're never going to see me again." Lara hiccupped through her tears.

"I know." Penny sobbed. "When?"  
"All I can tell you is soon," Lara still hugged her then stepped back, pulling Penny to the side. She took a piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Penny. The equation made no sense to her mother.

"One day, " Lara said brushing off her tears. "You will come home and find Sheldon working on this equation. Memorize it."

"Why?" Lara had only five minutes left.

"Because, on that day, you two will have the worst fight you've ever had. The only **real** fight you've ever had. When you see this on his whiteboard, promise me you'll remember everything he's done for you, everything he's made you feel, everything **he's** brought into your life."

Mother and daughter met eyes. Penny glanced at Sheldon who gave a tiny grin.

"I promise." She told Lara. Lara smiled her father's smile, pushed a button on the TTM and disappeared with a big bang.


	10. Epilogue

Penny dragged herself up the final flight of stairs. She couldn't wait until the renovations for this building were completed because then she was going to take the elevator every day. Even if there was a fire.

Being a mother and managing a fledgling business were exhausting. Sheldon helped as much as he could. After winning the Nobel, he decided to take a vacation which translated into free day care for Penny. All she wanted to do when she got inside was cuddle her baby, take off her shoes, have dinner and watch Doctor Who or BattleStar while canoodling with Sheldon. She opened the door.

Sheldon was standing at his whiteboard. He didn't even turn around when she called out "Hey!" Her fatigue made her irritation flame instantly. She glanced around but there was no sign of Lara. All her toys were put away and the apartment was absent of her baby chatter. If Sheldon had put her down for a nap at this hour, Penny was going to kill him.

"Sheldon, where's Lara?"

The physicist turned from his board and looked at her blankly.

"Lara." Penny repeated. "Fifteen months old. Green eyes. YOUR DAUGHTER." Her voice took on an edge of hysteria. Sheldon looked down at his feet as if expecting to find the baby there.

"I don't know." He said for probably the first time in his life.

Instantly, they both sprang into action, running frantically through the apartment. The bathroom, to Penny's relief, was empty.

"Oh God!' She heard Sheldon moan and her heart dropped into her shoes. She dashed to Sheldon's room to see her daughter on the floor happily munching an Amazing Spiderman comic book. From the tattered remains, it looked like she had been dining for some time. Ink stained her fingers and the corners of her mouth. Penny snatched her up to pull wad of arachnid-enhanced man out of her mouth.

"Sheldon, what the hell?" She fumed.

"She was under the whiteboard and must have wandered off." He explained.

"Must have! Must have!" Penny yelled "Were you even watching her?"

"Obviously, she escaped my attention," Sheldon reiterated.

"She could have choked, you jackass and you're out there calculating the circumference of your enormous ego."

"Actually, I think I may have figured out how to create the time device."

Penny faced him; he crossed his arms over his Superman shirt. She snarled at him and stalked past holding the baby.

"When is it going to end, Sheldon?" She demanded.

"You'll have to be more specific."

Penny placed Lara on the floor and gestured to the whiteboard in response.

"Science?" He was incredulous. "Never! My work has only just begun."

Penny covered her eyes with her hand while Lara tugged at her sandal straps. "Then what was the point of the Nobel?"

Sheldon looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "The Nobel is recognition that I am one of the greatest minds of the twenty-first century which means I have to work even harder. Did you think that I would retire and wait for my dotage? Give me more credit than that!"

Penny stopped for a second as memories came flooding back to her. She was in a nail parlor with her daughter, her grown up, beautiful, smart and wonderful daughter.

"_Leonard?" Penny almost dropped her magazine in the water._

"_Oh yeah," Lara enthused. "We go on quests all the time - rock climbing, surfing, hiking. He taught me how to drive AND how to make rocket fuel."_

"_Wow." Then Penny added, "Sheldon, I suppose, just flits in and out when he isn't solving the mysteries of the universe." She frowned._

"_Penny," Lara turned chastising eyes on her mother. "Sheldon deserves more credit. For one thing, he tells the best bedtime stories."_

"_Bed time stories?" Penny repeated._

"_Don't sound so surprised. You're in them. They're all about Queen Penelope and Sheldor the Conqueror. He even wrote them up and bound them into a book for me." She paused. "You designed the cover, you know."_

Tears began to fill her eyes. She was furious with Sheldon. Lord knew what trouble Lara could have gotten into or what could have happened. But the man in front of her, the one so obsessed with science that he was barely part of this world, was also a man who would create bedtime stories for his daughter. She took a deep breath. "This isn't how I thought it would be." Penny said quietly.

Sheldon pinched the bridge of his nose. "Penny, I understand you are upset but I am unclear as to why."

Penny smiled softly. "I'm upset because you were so lost in your work that you put Lara in danger. Do you understand?"

Sheldon looked at Lara sheepishly and nodded. His daughter smiled up at him with those familiar green eyes and held her arms out to him. He reached out and Penny let him take her. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Penny wasn't sure which one of them he said that to.

"Promise me you won't do that again. Promise me you won't be too busy to look after her."

Sheldon nodded. "I promise."

XXXX

Some time later, Penny and Sheldon stood silently across the aisle from each other. The priest spoke of things like "love", "cherish", and "vows" while the couple was thrilled they had come this far.


End file.
